


Hunters story

by A_verySneakyNinja



Category: Septiplier - Fandom, World of Warcraft
Genre: A random wow fic nobody asked for, Amnesia, Dead animals, Everyone is propably a lot ooc, He should never have jumped off that ship, Hunters, I’m propably gonna add tags as I go, Jack isnt feeling well at all, M/M, Mark is really bloodthirsty, Mark thinks thats stupid, Maybe a lil bit scary?, Not Sure Where This Is Going To Go, Old Gods, Silverpine Forest, Slight mystery, Tirisfal Glades, Undead, Varian is dead, damn Varian, everybody is off fighting demons, failed suicide attempts, hunter!mark, yup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_verySneakyNinja/pseuds/A_verySneakyNinja
Summary: Varian is dead and everybody is off fighting demons. Left on Eastern kingdoms is Mark, a hunter in the newly established ”Hunters system”. His main duty being to keep the scourge and other undead off of Ironforge and Stormwind he stumbles right into a dark mystery upon finding a severely wounded golden retriever puppy in a grizzly scene in the forest.Or, the story that I wrote to satisfy my sadistic nature





	1. Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my “B story” meaning the story I write on when the true horrible nature of writing a long mystery fic has dawned on me and I need to relax a bit.. only to realize that I’m propably repeating the same damn mistake again *slams face into table*

Varian was dead. Killed by the hand of Gul’dan. The news shook Azeroth down to the core as the fragile bond between the Alliance and the Horde became ever more restrained. In the big cities rumours were spreading, rumours about the true reason Varian died. It was the Forsakens fault they said, Sylvanas had killed him.

The rumours echoed through the world, reaching out even to the farthest points, on the highest mountains or in the darkest valleys. It was there, deep in the dark forests of Silverpine that one day a courier arrived.

————————————————————————————————————————

Rain rain rain. Mark sighed and pulled his coat tighter around him. Why did it have to be rain? As if it wasn’t dark enough already. He gazed back longingly at the outpost. It was a small house, almost hidden behind the grey pines, but its windows painted warm orange rectangles on the ground and from behind the closed windows music and laughter filled the night. 

They were sure to be drinking inside, singing merry songs and celebrating their newest kills. Mark didn’t care about the drinking, but he wanted to be in the warmth and tell them about his latest catch. A rather large but hideous undead that lacked a cheek. Mark smiled to himself as he recalled how it had tried to crush him with its mace but he had been one step ahead and driven his polearm deep into its chest.

Oh, how happy Chica would’ve been, and Thomas, and his moms. Sudden sorrow overtook him as he remembered their happy faces and Chica’s wagging tail. They had all been lost to the scourge a long long time ago. At that time he hadn’t been hunting for undead but for food. He had held no aggression against any other living being. He had been happy. They had been happy.

But it had all changed when Sylvanas, titans curse her name, had come to what was now called Tirisfal Glades. Demanding a home for her wretched people she had shown no mercy on the scarce population. At that time the scourge had come and gone through the glades and undead were no unusual sight. However it had never been a problem like this.

His family and his pet Chica had been brutally murdered and raised as Forsaken. He had managed to escape by pure luck when he ran into a group of passing adventurers. They took him to Stormwind where he got a new home. However, his hate for the Forsaken and the Scourge had never subsided.

Mark clutched his coat tighter until his fingers screamed out in protest. Why? Why did they have to die? Sudden rage filled him as he pulled back his arm and smashed his fist into the poor lamp-post next to him. He continued punching, desperately wishing for the pain to go away, get smashed against the damp wood.

When he eventually stopped his breath came out in pants and his shoulders heaved with every single one of them. From his right hand blood trickled onto the ground, quickly getting washed away by the downpour. Hopefully the scent of blood would attract some undead, he needed to kill something.

Steps. Marks hunter instincts kicked in as something neared. Swiftly he drew his bow and placed an arrow in it, all the while keeping his gaze on the dark cobblestone road and his senses sharpened to the max.

One. There was only one pair of footsteps hurrying towards his position. They were quiet and rapid. No warrior or Paladin. It could be a Forsaken courier, a new one then. The veterans knew to avoid the outposts.

The footsteps were closing in. Mark slowly backed out of the ring of light, fading into the shadows. One, two, three. A figure sprang forth from the shadows. Bleak light shined on blonde hair and reflected in blue eyes, clouded by fatigue. The man wore the gown of a courier from Stormwind but the clothes were dirty and wet. A bag was fastened in his belt and Mark could distinguish a small knife adorned with a lions head strapped to his leg. 

What a disappointment. A human.

Mark scoffed and put away his bow. When he walked back into the light the courier practically bounced backwards with surprise. His hand found the lion adorned dagger and he pulled it out, pointing it at Mark that sighed. This poor guy was shaking in his boots. He didn’t stand a chance.

“Look” Mark put his hands up in mock defeat. “I’m not gonna hurt you so stop pointing that pretty princess knife at me” at first the man didn’t react, suspicion steeling his eyes. But when Mark didn’t make any move he sheathed it, though the process went a lot slower and more mechanically than Mark had time with.

When the guy finally had relaxed from his defensive stance Mark crossed his arms. “So. Feel like telling me what the hell a royal courier is doing all the way out here?” The courier looked terrified. Mark sighed again. He knew all to well what the people in the capital called them. Freaks, homicidal psychos, outcasts. Heck, he had even been called vampire or Horde scum. He wasn’t even Horde for titans sake! He killed Forsaken and mindless undead, and so did his colleagues. People thought them dangerous, they thought that this was some kind of quarantine for crazy people. A way to get rid of the scum from Stormwinds pretty streets.

“Hey. I’m not dangerous. I didn’t shoot you, right?” Ok, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words but the courier seemed to relax somewhat. “What’s your business here?” 

The man fumbled with his bag. “Um” he cleared his throat “I-in the name of the late king Varian Wrynn..” A feeling cold as ice penetrated his heart. “What?”

The blonde man flinched at the sudden outburst and for a second Mark was sure that he was going to run off. But apparently the man was a courier at least somewhat worthy of the royal title as he soon recovered and started to read again. “By the will of the late king Varian Wrynn, that died valiantly in battle against wicked Gul’dan to save his allies I declare that the mighty Alliance has found a new leader in his son Anduin Wrynn.” The courier picked up another scroll. “By the king’s will agent Margareth Swiftblade has taken the position of Chief Investigator and is currently investigating the case in search for clues regarding any and all involvement from the Horde in the late king’s death.”

The woods went quiet for a minute and believing that the courier was done Mark opened his mouth to ask what the hell was happening. However, before he had the chance to say anything the courier interrupted him “In the name of chief of investigation Margareth Swiftblade any and all undead found at the premesis are to be relocated to Stormwind immediately for... questioning”

What. The. Fuck. Mark was this close to punching the poor courier right in his pretty baby face. So it wasn’t enough for them to cast them out? Now they weren’t allowed to kill the undead anymore either? It was obvious that the courier could sense Marks rage as he backed away and placed a wary hand on his dagger.

Mark was fighting to keep calm now, he may be an outcast but it wouldn’t lead to any good if he put a scar on a royal couriers face. He ran a hand over his face. “Just. Look... Tell me. What. The. Actual. Fuck has happened in these last few years?”

“I do not have the authority to tell you” This man. Mark couldn’t stand him. Before he could control himself he stepped up and grabbed the startled man by the collar. He then said in a low voice, close to a whisper “I don’t give a fuck about your authorities, news, orders and whatnot. This place is ruled only by the simple rule of kill or be killed” he inched closer, breathing out on the others face ”... and I’m sure that no one will be surprised if one puny courier happens to disappear”

“Y-you wouldn’t” the poor man looked as pale as a ghost, his eyes darting back and forth in a desperate attempt to avoid Marks steeled gaze. A devilish smile played on the hunters face as he pressed the tip of his arrow closer to the couriers throat, drawing blood. 

Mark met the terrified gaze of the other man and in that instant he knew that, he would do it, he would kill this man and get rid of the problems once and for all. However, before he could press the arrow any further a little growling ball knocked him over. But right before he hit the wet cobblestone he twisted, shaking the puny figure off of him, landed in a crouch and drew an arrow, aiming it into the dark.

The courier had fallen to the ground the moment Mark let him go and was now staring into the darkness, dagger gripped tight. His gaze kept shifting between Mark and the shadows, clearly unsure of which was the bigger threat.

The indecisive man irritated Mark but he kept his eyes locked into the darkness. If this was who he thought it was then he couldn’t let himself be distracted.

The deadlock kept going for minutes and as the rain poured down the courier started to lose focus. Mark noticed the change and shot him a warning glare. The man didn’t know it, but they were surrounded, any and all signs of weakness would lead to serious pain.

But apparently the courier didn’t notice his warning as he stood up and sheathed his dagger, still trembling slightly. And as he did hell broke loose. From the shadows two shapes, not unlike the one that had attacked Mark, materialized. They quickly brought the poor man to his knees, attaching themselves to his legs and shoulders and forcing a high pitched scream from his lips.

“Idiot” couldn’t that man do anything right? Wanting to prevent any more loud noises Mark moved slowly towards the courier, always keeping his eyes locked into the darkness. The moment he reached the man a light swooshing sound broke through the rain. With a speed not quite humanly possible Marks hand snapped up and gripped the lethal weapon. The arrow stopped short merely millimeters away from the pupil of the courier. 

With a slight crippling of his muscles Mark broke the arrows shaft into pieces and let it fall to the ground, making sure the tip didn’t touch him. He then stood up and sighed, so it really was him, huh.

Only a few seconds after the arrowhead hit the ground the courier, still held tight by what appeared to be two giant mops, witnessed how a person seemingly materialized from thin air behind the hunter. The new man was a dusky blonde, thin man. His chin was decorated with a short beard stubble that was cut in a surprisingly good fashion regarding where he lived. It was clear that the new man was a hunter as he had a big longbow strapped to his back and a quiver fastened to his belt. Over all the man seemed rather unserious as he slouched over the other hunters shoulder. But when he turned to look at the courier he knew that this man was bad news, at least as bad as the one before, because partially hidden beneath his hair two sharp blue eyes cut through him. Fiercely analytical and so cold that the courier could feel his heart frosting over.

“Hey Mark, who’s that?” The almost to be murderer shrugged. “A courier”

“That’s not the gown of a normal courier bro” 

“So it might be a royal one? What of it??” Mark was extremely irritated, because he knew exactly where this was going.

“You tried to kill a royal courier!?” 

“Oh shut up Felix, it was you that tried to kill him a second ago.”

“I thought he was a zombie!” Both Mark and the courier raised an eyebrow. “Don’t give me that look, look at him yourself! He does resemble an undead.” Mark shot a glance at the other man and saw that, indeed, he did look like a zombie with his clouded eyes and destroyed clothes. But still, he couldn’t let Felix win.

“I can’t see what you’re talking about” Felix opened his mouth to shoot something back but was interrupted by a wince. The courier was still on the ground, his skin penetrated by the teeth of Felix two hounds. 

“Oh shit” Felix hurried over to the courier, dismissing his pets in the process. “Are you alright?” He crouched down by the poor man, starting to wrap his arms in bandage. 

Mark sighed at the other hunter. He was way too stuck on returning to Stormwind and treated everyone from there like royalty. Felix didn’t really have a place here. His heart was too soft. According to him he had been a friendly citizen of Stormwind, but he got involved with some shady people and one night, when they were supposed to rob a jewelry boutique they were discovered by the owner, Marzia. Upon being discovered his “friends” had gone berserk and cut her down, doing the same with the two guards that heard the ruckus. They then escaped but Felix had stayed behind, desperately trying to keep the poor woman and the guards alive. When a patrol found him the following day he was sitting in a pool of blood, clothes ripped, eyes bloodshot and knife in hand. They immediately took him for the murderer and arrested him on the spot. He was then sentenced to 12 years of service in one of the many outposts that were stationed all over the world. However, right before he was sent off a woman wearing a red cape had made her way through the crowd, she had revealed herself to be Marzia and said that she knew what he had done, she gave him his two dogs Edgar and Maya before leaving. Felix, or pewds, as the other hunters liked to call him had fallen in love on the spot and now recited how beautiful she was at least once every hour. Mark scoffed, he was damn tired of it.

Just as Mark abandoned that train of thought a small beam of bleak moonlight broke through the clouds and shone down upon the scene. It reflected in wet stone covered with trails of blood and made the two blonde men’s hair light up. The metallic smell of blood sifted through the air mixing with the smell of wet vegetation. It was.. harmonious, like the minutes after a battle. Mark didn’t care though. He hated light just as much as rain or fog. “I’m going hunting” That’s right, his face twisted into a grim smile, he only ever cared for the hunt.


	2. Silent night

The forest was covered in an eerie silence. The only sound the faint rustling of black leaves when an animal hurried away from the silent intruder. Mark was but a shadow under the light of the moon and moved swiftly and with ease through the dense forest. He had learned to hide his bloodlust well through the years, but now he let some of it shine through as he made his way through the forest. He wanted them to come to him.

The scream of a dying animal cut through the night and Mark halted, brown eyes lit up by the moon scanning the dark forest. He quickly localized the sound to come from a nearby farmstead, long since abandoned by the people who once lived there.

———————————

A sweet heavy smell wafted through the air as Mark neared what he knew to be the small clearing housing a run down, often haunted, group of buildings. He licked his lips, if he was lucky the one that had killed the animal was nearby. A thought that he found to be likely seeing as Forsaken and other undead patrolled the area regularly. Oh the glee, Mark forced a crazed laugh down, whoever was out there was going to have a fucking terrible evening.

Mark sensed the clearing long before the twisted branches gave way to black grass and slowed down to change direction and circle the clearing to get closer to the sweet smell. However he had barely walked two steps toward the left of the nearby barn when a guttural scream made him stop dead in his tracks. Had they found him? No, impossible. He should be impossible to see or sense. “Come on body, move” he muttered to himself as he shook free from the strange sensation that had gripped him tight. That thing was obviously in pain, killing it was only the right thing to do. Mark grinned. He was such a liar, that thing was gonna pay for stunning him, it could be a defenceless civilian for all that he cared.

——————————————

The dark carcasses of the old farmstead towered above the lone hunter as he prowled closer to his target. The smell had gone from being only vaguely disturbing to full fletched “I’m gonna puke” level and Mark had, by pure habit, tied a handkerchief over his mouth and nose to make it more bearable. Whatever had happened here it hadn’t been the usual “hunt for food” kind of killing. No, this was a slaughter of, to Mark and possibly every other human being on Azeroth, unbelievable cruelty. Spread across the barn lay at least seven deers, all of them seemingly dragged there and arranged in some crude pattern resembling an oval. Then in the oval lay a number of small animals in a circle and inside that circle the only thing that seemed to be breathing still. Mark couldn’t quite make out what it was and in an unusual fit of curiosity stalked out from the protecting shade of the barn and inched closer.

The thing was probably the source of the dying animal wail that had led him here he concluded as he neared and saw that it was covered in fur, wet from the pouring rain. Light breaths and what sounded like whines escaped the small ball as he inched closer and saw that it was shaking. “Fuck” Marks heart was beating too fast, this.. this wasn’t good. He knew what that was. Sudden memories of warm sun playing in golden fur washed over him as the bleak moonlight broke through the heavy clouds and reflected in black eyes. No. Please. Flames and the screams of his family echoed through his mind as he fell down on his knees, hands shaking he reached out to the trembling creature in front of him. Blood, gold. His eyes suddenly lost focus as he withdrew his hand. Chica. Chica. Chica. Chica. The taste of salt and the sensation of rain.. it had to be the rain, falling down his cheeks. Black eyes losing focus as a way too blunt blade cut through her neck. Mark didn’t notice how his body shaked with violent sobs, nor did he notice the dark figure escaping the shadows of the nearby houses and disappearing into the forest, stumbling slightly. He did notice how his face twisted into a heartbroken smile though. “Smile Mark. Treat others with kindness. Always” Mark let his mind fall into darkness, if only they knew how many he had killed.

As silence fell over the eerie scene like a blanket the small ball of fur stopped whining. For a moment nothing happened. But as the tiny creature slowly came to and noticed the strange man that was so close to it warmth started coursing through it as a natural sense of duty and built in love for humankind made the small dog turn and do the only thing it could.

Mark was gently pulled out of nothingness by a strange sensation in his hand. Something was pressing into it. Something so familiar it hurt. Blinking as if newly roused from sleep he looked down and what felt like a spectral knife got pushed through his heart. There lay a small golden retriever puppy, it’s body covered in still oozing wounds and it’s breathing so shallow it barely made itself known.

“Oh.” The silence returned “What have they done to you?” Fighting back the urge to run away Mark softly cupped the little dogs head and scratched it behind its ear. One of them was badly torn and the ear he was scratching was partially covered in blunt cuts that he did his best to avoid. 

Upon feeling the warmth of another living being the puppy let out a sigh and slumped against his knee. It looked so defenceless.. it needed his help, maybe.. maybe he could help someone for once. His train of thought was interrupted though as the sudden noice of a branch snapping made the warmth that had been starting to spread through him change nature. Someone was there.. someone had done this. Who the hell had done this? 

White hot rage filled his veins, clouding his eyes and making his all too burnt out heart beat ever so loudly again. He didn’t realize he was standing until a small whine penetrated his mind again. Goddamn it. The culprit was in there. So close. He wanted to kill it, he really wanted to. But.. he looked down. The small puppy was fighting to keep conscious now, it’s eyes having started to cloud over as more blood fell on the black grass.

“Kill it” a voice inside of him whispered. “Put it out of its misery” Mark pulled out the small dagger he always kept with him. “Yes” He bent down and lightly placed his hand on the puppy’s head, keeping it still “yes!” The puppy sighed happily and leaned into his hand. It felt safe. “Do it!” Mark brought the knife down.

Red hot blood hit the black grass of the clearing and as the still air was moved by a gentle but oh so chilling breeze no sound was made except for the pitter patter of the rain. In the grass sat a lone shadow, holding the lifeless body of a small dog. He wasn’t making any sound, sitting unmoving and staring at the small life in his arms. In his leg a hunting dagger was buried deep, it’s shaft being the only thing visible. As the smell of blood filled the air the man stood up, cradling the puppy ever so gently and slowly, silently, made his way back into the forest.

————————————————————————————————————————

The moment Mark entered the hunters cabin Felix was on him. Or, not on him, but rather all over the puppy. He lifted its paws, checked its eyes, nose and immediately kidnapped it into the kitchen, all the while blabbering on and on about some shit that Mark didn’t care about. He needed to be alone. 

Turning away from the warm light and smell of food emanating from the kitchen area he made his way up the creaking, somewhat hastily built together stairs leading up into the more secluded parts of the cabin. This area was dark, cold and filled with almost as much dust as there was water in the puddles forming under the dripping ceiling. Despite their looks and circumstances the hunters were generally as comfort seeking as any person so this area was largely avoided, having been nicknamed “the Crooked Nook” after the way it’s floor planks and walls were twisted and misshaped from years of being neglected and the ceiling was so low that you barely could stand crouched. 

“The nook” as some also referred to it was the closest to a home Mark had owned in a long time. And to tell the truth it was more of a hideout than a place he always was in. He too sometimes spent time and mostly slept with the other hunters but, Mark pushed away some cloth, here, here he could be alone.

Letting out a rare sigh of satisfaction Mark fell into his little den, landing on a pillow he had been allowed to keep from his, albeit short and rough, stay in the capital. The “Mark part” of the nook was actually pretty dry and as Mark lit the small oil lamp that he had standing on a nearby barrel the whole place was bathed in a soft orange light. The den was rather small, barely the size of a few square meters but had been used to its maximum capacity.

The entrance was covered by a thick cloth that was keeping the worst of the dampness out, on the floor lay a rather well crafted carpet, found in an abandoned house and on it a thick layer of pillows were strewn out, all clumsily but carefully hand sewn from cloth scraps and filled with moss. Mark was leaning on the far wall which contained multiple hooks and nails with different precious materials hanging from them. There were a couple of daggers, a shortsword, a necklace, a somewhat scrunched up drawing in a slightly uneven frame and a broken clock all hanging down or resting on the various makeshift holdups. Mark had lifted down the medical kit that had been resting on a poor bent nail right next to him and was bandaging his wound to the light sound of rain hitting the small, somewhat clouded over window to his left. There the bleak light from the outside hit a potted plant standing on the floor next to it. The plant was a sample of a red, almost orange flower that he had found growing all over his old house when he had visited once. Maybe he should water it again.

Another time. The damn flower didn’t seem to want to give up on life no matter how neglected anyways. Sighing Mark put away his medical kit and bent over to his right to pick out a book from the makeshift “bookshelves” (more like book boxes) that were standing there. He would need to go find some more soon. They were getting.. Mark opened the chosen book only to have all the pages fall out.. old.

Mark had never been, at least not in a long long time, one for useless reading. Everything in his current life had a use, every move, every thought, had a meaning. It had been ages since he last read a carefree book out of pure “fun”. Everything that couldn’t help his hunt was pretty much trash to him. Now he was sitting leaned against his old pillow, wounded leg perched high on a nearby box reading for the tenth time “Genns guide on undead strangling” an old book about cruel hand to hand techniques to slay undead in a way that would make even their unfeeling bodies scream in agony. It was a book of quality, written by the old worgen king who was known to be the founder of the hunters system. Now he was out on some islands, hunting demons.. a load of crap according to Mark. Thanks to that damned war the number of Forsaken passing through had decreased to almost nothing. The system had been placed here purely to keep them, or any undead, from advancing on Stormwind or Ironforge but Mark really didn’t see the threat. The undead here were as tame as fucking dogs! 

Dogs.. a noisy thought finally broke through his minds barrier. That puppy.. he needed to find a use for it. Come to think of it. Why hadn’t he killed it? It was basically as useless as useless could be. Mark sighed. He couldn’t possibly have been in his right mind. 

The sudden thought had completely ruined his concentration and as he closed the book on the “pull out their ribs” chapter and rested his head in his arms his mind started to wander once again. Through the forest, all the way back to when he had found the little dog. There were parts of that scene that he had walked right past. Something had happened there. Something had been there when he was.

Brain kicking in Mark pulled out some blank pages from a book, took out a piece of coal from a small paper box and started sketching. The corpses of that time had been placed in a rather peculiar fashion.. he drew a couple of quick lines. All deers had been placed with their legs facing outwards. He stopped a moment to visualize before putting the coal back on the paper. The small animals had all been placed in a specific order.. he racked his brain but ended up frustrated. He was unsure of the order but it had been a hare, two mice, a long eared owl, two strange, kind of out of place eagles and a pheasant. Most of those were rare animals. Whoever had done this had gone through a lot of trouble to do it. Mark drew the inner circle and finished with a dot in the centre. This was the pattern he had seen.

The drawing was kind of crude and almost resembled a kids drawing, Mark was still proud of it and it served its purpose because he could now clearly see the pattern. What had been drawn with the corpses was an eye. The deers formed the outer oval with their legs as eyelashes, the small animals were the iris and the puppy had been the pupil. This was.. interesting really. Mark felt his heart speed up a little as he scratched down the names of the small animals he had found beside the eye. Someone was trying to do something and he would find out what and why. He would capture them and put them in one of the cells and feed him cookies until he begged for mercy! Mark grinned. Who was he kidding. He was gonna torture that fucking bastard until he cried.

————————————-

“Hey” 

“...”

“Hey Mark!”

“Mark! listen goddammit”

Felix grabbed Marks shoulder just as he was trying to exit the front door but was quickly shrugged off. “Go tend to the puppy Felix” Mark put a hand on the door handle “You like tending to things right? Since you spared that dog courier”.

Mark could practically feel how Felix tensed. “You can’t just kill everything Mark” Felix’s voice was weighted down with anger. “You used to direct all your anger at those filthy undead, which I might add I hate just as much as you do, but now you’re just killing everything” He paused. “I get that you’re angry about your f..” 

Nothing could’ve prepared the poor blonde hunter as Mark spun around and pushed Felix up against the wall, toppling over some shoes in the process. “Don’t. Say. Another. Word” He was met by ice cold blue eyes that actually made him falter for a second.

“I saw someone outside the shack a few minutes ago” Felix grabbed the hand that was holding him. “You might want to check it out”. With a light twist of his hands he forced Mark to let go. As the slender hunter landed on the ground he dusted himself off and started walking back to the kitchen but stopped just as he was about to walk out of the room “Oh, and you propably shouldnt walk too far with that leg, Markie”

Mark watched the irritating fellow disappear before he grimaced and touched his wrist. That damn hunter and his tricks. The titans had been fools to put that much power into a pacifist. And his leg was fine thank you! He had taken one of the rare healing potions he had saved up so it was bearable. That Felix cared too much.

Mark opened the door with his non-hurt hand and walked outside. It was quiet. The rain had stopped and the clouds parted to reveal the full moon bathing the landscape in cold white. The night elves worshipped the moon Mark remembered. He had met one once, a priest. They had kept going on and on about how loving and warm their “mother” is. If that was true then surely this wasn’t her. Mark breathed in deep, taking in all the scents after a cold nights rain before looking up at the moon again. This mother was cold and unfeeling. She only shone her light because she didn’t have a choice. She had been placed here without her consent. Just like the hunters, outcasts from society, and the undead that had been denied their final sleep.

To be honest Mark prefered this moon. The cold light matched the blood much better. Leaving that train of thought he closed his eyes and focused. The night was silent except for the small sound of water droplets falling from the roof and hitting a rusty bucket. He couldn’t sense any presence. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one. So, behind the shack huh. Mark readied his shortsword. This was starting to get exciting.


	3. Help me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone was there. Someone with a green eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clears throat* Hi. I’m terribly sorry about the short chapter and that I’m so late. I screwed up some minor things with my studies and with all the christmas stuff going on they grew to hit me pretty hard. Anyway, I wrote this chapter super late so I dont know if its any good but I’m really excited to post it ^^
> 
> Hope you like it

The old shack stood against the moon, the large pines behind casting dark shadows over it. No light reflected in the hollow windows that sat crooked and bent in the crumbling walls. As Mark walked closer he let his bloodlust fall away to a sharp ice cold focus. 

Light panting.

Mark let a grim smile play upon his lips. Felix had been right, there was someone back there. 

As Mark put his hand on the shack he breathed out slowly, letting his image fade into shadows, mixing with the surroundings. It wasn’t magic, the mages of Stormwind had once told him that. Mark grimaced. It wasn’t like he cared about magic anyway. It was merely a handy skill. With his fingertips tracing the scarred wood of the building Mark stalked closer to his prey. He turned a corner. Someone swallowed nervously, trying to stop what Mark assumed was panicked breathing. He grinned and tightened his grip on the shortsword.

Just as he was about to turn the last corner a soft sound broke through the night. Mark couldn’t quite comprehend it and stopped, even if just for a split second, to listen. There was something familiar about the way the other mans breath hitched with every inhalation, Mark knew for certain that it was a man now. He could feel it with every muscle. This man. He wasn’t human nor beast. 

As the soft sounds carried through the night the lone hunter felt himself sliding down the wall to rest on the still wet grass. There was something so familiar about the way the other man breathed. Mark recalled he had once been like that too. Dark brown eyes moved upwards and without realizing it Mark was relaxing. He could feel the other man now. How he fought back tears, how his breath hitched with every shivering inhalation. He closed his eyes. The night air was as clear as it could be in this cursed forest, the rain having washed every corruption off of it and as Mark sat there and listened to the strange sounds that he couldn’t comprehend but yet felt was so incredibly familiar he, just for a sliver of a second, let the grip on his guard slip up.

The effect was immediate. The other presence suddenly fell silent although Mark could still faintly hear the all too quick breathing. As if someone had just put a hand over their mouth in a desperate attempt to keep quiet. A slight rustling of leaves gave away movement and it was in that moment that he realized. He had screwed up, the other man knew he was here. Cursing Mark quickly rose and turned the corner.

Shallow breathing, a single green eye lit up by the cold moonlight. Slender hands, pale arms gushed with slashing wounds and dual daggers dripping with something foul. Mark barely had any time to react before the man that had been hiding behind the shack fell into shadows. Appearing shortly thereafter behind him but fading away once again just as quickly. 

“Fuck” Heart beating like crazy Mark took chase but was quickly crippled. Severe pains kept shooting up from his injured leg and although he kept running he couldn’t control the motions and soon found his foot caught in a root. 

As Mark fell to the ground he didn’t bother to evade the fall or continue the chase. He knew all to sure that the shadow was long gone and that he deserved all the pain that the ground could bring him. How fucking stupid could one man be? Mark let his arm cover his face. How could he let himself get sensed like that? And what had that man been doing here? Mark hadn’t sensed any ill intent from him. Just.. intense and unquenchable sorrow. Like someone who had lost everything but been forced to live on. Alone. So much like himself.. “ Die” Mark whispered the word to himself over and over again until the strange feeling passed. But even after the feeling, and everything else, had disappeared he continued to lie there, gazing at the now cloudless sky. One single wish appearing in his mind, as it always tended to do when everything guarding it had been cleared. “Please” Mark clutched his fists until warmth sprung through the skin and wetted his hands “Just bring me to them”.

——————————-

“Mark you dumbass!” A single slightly accented voice echoed through the forest. “Get out here, I haven’t got all night!”

The single voice grew more and more high pitched as the lone man continued to shout, growing ever more desperate. He was pleading in his own way, but the forest stayed silent.

Behind the tall dark pines nothing could be seen at first, but the growing desperation of the lone hunter slowly made his camouflage give way and a dusky blonde, pretty well kept, tuft off hair appeared accompanied by two usually amazingly clear blue eyes that now were clouded by worry. Felix moved quickly through the forest. Dawn was upon him and the low standing sun cast long shadows, colouring everything a brilliant red and orange but blinding him in the process. “Mark” Felix cursed as his voice wavered and cracked. He couldn’t let Mark see him this weak or he wouldn’t see the end of it. That was, if he ever saw him again.. shaking his head furiously Felix picked up the pace and continued “in the name of Marzia, please don’t let me be too late”

———————

“Markimoo” Felix was tired now, having resorted to the lowest of strategies. If Mark was just out there being a punk that wouldn’t answer he surely wouldn’t let him shout this name all around the forest. The bleak sun was standing high over the trees now and a gentle mist blurred the forest. “Markimoo!, come on I know you hate me. Stop being such a brat!” Felix insults echoed through the forest. Seemingly unheard. 

“Alright.” Felix pulled a hand through his hair. “I’ve had enough”. Sitting down on what he assumed was a stone he almost got a heart attack when a grunt made itself heard from in under him. “Get. off. me” Felix could’ve almost cried of happiness right then and there. “Mark” 

The person in question only glared at him. “Mind getting off?” With a huff Felix stood up. “That’s not how you greet your saviour bro” He suppressed a grin at Marks death glare. “I was just taking a nap mind you” oh god, he actually pouted. Felix almost burst out laughing. “Let’s head back” he put out a hand that Mark actually, to the great surprise of both, took. “Wade has been all out of whack since you didn’t return. He was so scared he didn’t have time to tend his garden.” Another miracle, Mark chuckled. “You sure he isn’t dying?” Felix just blinked. Mark blinked back, gaze quickly growing darker. “What?” 

“N-no, it’s nothing. I just... you’re not angry. That’s really odd. It’s creeping me out.” Felix made sure to laze his voice with as much sass as possible and started walking towards the house, but soon realized that Mark wasn’t following. “I’m not waiting for you.” As he turned around to scowl at Mark the other hunter was zoned out causing him to completely lose all mood for scowling. “What happened really? I sent you out to check out something random because you seemed so.. out of it. But now I get an even more zoned out you back? Whats happening Mark?” That seemed to make the brown eyed hunter snap out of it. “N-nothing.” He walked up and past Felix. “I’m fine.”

———————

As they neared the house, Mark a good few feet ahead of Felix that for once didn’t bother to irritate him, Mark suddenly froze in his step. “What’s up?” Felix stayed a respectful distance away from him. “Wait here” The order was extremely lightheaded and Felix didn’t pay it much attention as he stalked after the other man. Thousand questions bubbled inside of him but the glimpse he got of Marks face kept his mouth shut.

After a few meters Felix realized where they were going. Just behind two large pines was the shack. His patience was running out but thankfully Mark seemed to be talkative. “There.. there was someone here last night.. just as you said” as Mark turned around to glance at the other hunter he looked.. strange. “He was scared” A few moments of silence followed “I slipped up. I let him get away” Wait. Mark let a prey get away? Felix raised an eyebrow “and?” 

“I have to see what he did there”. Felix wanted to protest. That had obviously only been a Forsaken spy, and a rookie at that deeming by how scared Mark thought he had been. He had no time to voice his disagreement though because now the crooked shadow of the shack appeared before them. Well. It’s not like there will be anything there, Felix sighed. Better get this over with and then get in and over to calm Wade.

As he made his way over to Mark he realized that Mark was strangely, almost eerily, silent. “Hey bro, let’s go inside. There is noth..” Felix never finished the sentence as a cacophony of feelings filled him. On the scarred wall something was written. Carved in the wood, two words.

“Help me”

[](http://sv.tinypic.com?ref=ic8oih)

Here’s a drawing I made for the second chapter. The quality is crap but I hope its alright anyway


	4. Rumours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so here’s a longer one for ya, as an apology for being away for so long ^^
> 
> Its possible I’ll try to put more effort into my other fic as I feel kind of bad for just leaving it but I havent really decided. Hopefully I’ll have time for both. My studies are being a pain lately and I’ve got a cold but I really think I’ll manage *salutes* also, random fun fact. There has been snowing so much lately, my christmas star is barely visible anymore xD Hopefully I’ll have time to write lots more before christmas but in case I dont..
> 
> Merry christmas everybody! *turns up christmas music*

“We should just leave it” Bob put the book he had been reading down on the roughly made table where the four hunters of the 7th hunters lodge were seated. “We’re not a charity”. Wade started to protest but was quickly silenced by Felix. “He’s right. I hate to admit that we can’t accept another whiny teenager with issues” Mark ignored all the stares that were turned at him “but the fact is that the person that wrote that probably was a newly raised Forsaken.”

“Yes” Bob cleared his throat. “Our outpost hasn’t seen one yet but..” he started flipping through his book “The fact is that newly raised Forsaken tend to have two reactions to their current state. Either they accept it immediately and go on to join their brethren or.. “ He turned the book around, showing the contents to the others “they become horrified and run away. These specimen often seek to join the races they once belonged to resulting in either them realizing they don’t belong and ultimately accepting their fate. Becoming a true Forsaken. Or, if they still can’t accept their fate.. “ Mark interrupted Bob by suddenly leaning in to see the illustration in the book more clearly. It wasn’t an incredibly detailed drawing but in Marks eyes the delicate charcoal lines seemed to intertwine and twist so that he could clearly see the cut up arms, wounds that no one could possibly live with. The green eye looking at him from in under messy brown hair made his gut twist in a strange way. That guy was dangerous. Leaning back from the illustration Mark motioned for Bob to continue, receiving a slightly irritated huff in return. 

“Not all are able to accept their fate. Resulting in self harm, anxiety, suicide attempts and the like ultimately ending in them losing their mind and turning. Becoming mindless undead”

Bobs little speech had been purely informative but Mark could still feel a chill spread through the room. Most of the people gathered around this table had lost someone to the Scourge or the Forsaken, they rarely differed between them. All the hunters cared little for non living, cutting them down mercilessly and often thriving in the slaughter. They strictly saw them as prey lower than insects and refused to treat them as anything but what they were. Dead.

The problem with the newly turned was that they were still somewhat human. They hadn’t chose a side yet and often shared their experiences with the hunters. They were feeling and wanted to be one of them. Desperately. Everyone in the room knew that and knew what needed to be done. It didn’t matter what side the undead ended up choosing. They needed to..

“We need to kill him” Felix stood up. “He’s turning. Otherwise he wouldn’t have pleaded to us like that.”

Something with what Felix was implying didn’t quite fit with Mark. A weird twist in his chest almost made him stand up and protest. Lucky for Mark Wade was quicker. “Hey hey hey, shouldn’t we think about this? Maybe he’s just going to leave? We could let the guys at the 6th lodge take care of him.”

“The capture division will have nothing to do with this” Felix eyes turned cold as he looked at Wade. It was easy to think that the blonde hunter was being cruel but the reason no one protested was that they all knew what the capture division would do to the poor newly raised. The priest leading that place was a fanatic of unimaginable proportions. She would turn him to the light even if it turned his soul to ash. “You’re new so don’t sweat it” Felix motioned at Wade who looked ready to get down on his knees and apologize. “This isn’t an easy decision for any of us”.

In the quiet that followed only the light crackling from the small fireplace was heard. It was a heavy silence but well needed. It had been a rough night and everyone started to feel the need to sleep. Right as Felix stood up and got ready to say the words that everyone supposed would “seal the deal” a rather weak voice broke the silence. 

“You are not allowed to kill any Forsaken”

Oh great. Here comes the big city bitch, Mark muttered to himself as he let himself sink down to rest on the table. He had no use in hearing this.

“With all due respect courier” Felix was too tired to be any friendlier. “What does your highness propose we do instead?” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. Clearly thinking of only one thing. A soft, warm, sleeping friendly thing.

The courier scowled “It’s simple. You capture him and let us take him to the capital”

Felix sighed “Fine. As long as we don’t get another undead up our throats I’m fine with it.” He looked at the other hunters. “Votes for mr sassy couriers suggestion?”

Everyone, who was by now all lying with half their weight or more on the table in varying artistic positions immediately raised their hands.

“Whatever”

“Just let me sleep”

“Kill the courier”

With those final words Felix hit the table with a pretend club, grabbed the sleepy hunters one by one and pulled them out of the room.

“Meeting finished. Thanks for participating”

As the door to the sleeping quarters shut closed the courier was left alone staring at the empty table where there had been such a lively conversation just a few minutes ago. “D-did I do something wrong?” He muttered to himself as he moved over to the kitchen. He needed some coffee.

———————————————-

Deep in the forests of Silverpine a lone group of hunters was moving quickly through the forest. The bleak light from the afternoon sun casted long shadows on the ground and the still air seemed to want to suffocate them. Nothing moved except the hunters who seemed to look for something.

A sudden gust of wind made the pines shake, sending cascades of water from the rain last night down upon them. One hunter seemed to waver, he was scared, but the woman in the white robe standing behind him motioned him forward. He had nothing to fear with her there. The hunters were heavily armed, two carrying heavy longswords and one a bow. The woman was carrying a delicately made holy book with a golden stone in the centre of it and a lantern fastened to her belt and the man who had wavered cradled a druidic staff adorned with felled horns from a stag, feathers and a blue stone.

“Milady” The druid turned to the woman. “The forest is sick, we shouldn’t carry on”

“Blasphemy.” The woman hit the druid in the head lightly with her book. “You’ve got nothing to fear. The Light is with you” A light twist of her hand made shining bubbles of lite encase all hunters and the ones in the back started to scream war cries. This made the druid cringe as the forest shook in pain once again. “You don’t understand. In there the light has no power” He pointed further in at the forest where the pines were older and covered with moss. The whole forest seemed to become denser and darker there as the pines, taller than most of the younger ones, towered over the hunters.

The woman narrowed her eyes at the forest. “All the more reason for us to enter. That thing escaped in there, and the capture division will never falter in persuading their prey.”

The hunters in the back started to make a racket again. Screaming things like “For the Alliance!” “For the Light!” “Capture and torture that bastard!” And before the druid had a chance to protest again the rest of his group had already entered screaming war cries and shining light everywhere. Seeing no other choice he followed but whispered a silent prayer “Elune please protect us”.

—————————————

All light seemed to disappear as they walked inside the forest. Even the light that the woman shone down upon the surrounding trees seemed to get consumed even before it hit the next row of bleak trunks. The band had quieted down now. No one wanted to break the eerie silence that wrapped around them or else they had an all to sure feeling that they would be killed instantly by the thousand eyes that watched them from just outside the ring of light. Waiting to strike the second it faltered.

———————————

They way back had long since disappeared when one of the hunters, who was walking up front, stopped. “There’s a light”

The druid looked around but couldn’t find anything. “Can’t you see it?” Slowly the hunter started to walk away. Off the path. “No! You can’t..” The druid started to reach for her but was cut short by the woman that brusquely grabbed the wayward hunter and brought her back into line. “There is no light here. None but mine.” With those words the hunters eyes cleared and she started to shake. “There’s monsters, we need to leave!” The priest seemed to falter slightly. “Yes we sh..”

“We can’t” 

Everyone turned to the one who had spoke up. There stood the druid, he was shaking and cradled his staff so close that it seemed it would break. “We can’t leave. The forest told me so.”

The priest sensed that her companions were reaching their limit and in a desperate attempt to calm everyone down breathed out and said “Then.. the only way left is forward”

—————————————

“Look” The light wandering through the forest stopped. “A creek” The weary hunters had been walking through the forest for what felt like days but probably was no more than a hour. They looked sick and lifeless with their eyes sunk in and their skin pale. Ever since they had entered the forest they had felt their life getting drained out of them systematically. The forest was consuming them and there was nothing they could do about it. The sight of the lively creek was a saving grace and they would have screamed of happiness had they not lost the strength of their voices long ago.

“Let’s take a break” slowly they moved their hurt bodies over to the water and sat down around it. The water felt cool against their feverish skin and one of the hunters cried of happiness. Soon all were happily drinking from the creek, all except the druid that sat leaned back against a bleak trunk right at the edge of the light, looking into the surrounding darkness.

“Kill them”

A whisper broke through the night.

“They will betray you. Kill them before they do”

“Who are you?” The druid barely lifted his head. “Go away”. The voices fell silent, all too easy, and the druid fell back towards the tree. The forest was quiet once again. But not for long.

Soon a scream broke through the night. As the druid started, startled by the voice, he awoke to see how one of the hunters equipped with longswords had pierced the priest. The hunters eyes were glazed over, unseeing, as he kept mumbling “kill before they do, kill before they do”. Everything stilled as blood fell on the grass when the priest coughed. “S-Samuel? What has happened to you?” She reached out a quivering blood drenched hand and placed it on her killers cheek. Her life force was fading quickly, the others could do nothing but watch as she smiled weakly. “You shouldn’t have.. listened.. to.. the...” she drew a shivering breath “..voices”. And the whole forest went dark.

The next thing that happened not one of the hunters had time to react to. The hunter called Samuel fell down on the ground screaming as he realized what he had done, scrambling to his feet soon thereafter and escaping into the forest. More sounds of blood splattering on the ground filled the area and water splashed as bodies broke the surface. Not a sound was made anymore. The hunters had no time to react as their silent killer cut them down.

The druid had frozen on the spot, shaking from the realization that his friends had all been assassinated in a matter of seconds. His breath was coming out in short heaves now, eyes frantically searching for the culprit. They found their focus on three green dots seemingly floating by the creek. They were placed in what looked like a slightly displaced triangle, two on almost the same level and one about a meter above. Soon thereafter mumbling made itself heard through the darkness, it sounded almost like a chant. As if the person causing it was fighting desperately to stay sane. 

The monster didn’t seem to have discovered him yet as it started rummaging through something on the ground. Probably one of the bodies. This was his chance. Mumbling a quiet prayer the druid started to talk to the tree behind him. “Please hear my humble prayer mighty tree” The monster stood up. “I can not fathom your knowledge and strength as I have merely lived a fraction of your life. Please give me a sliver of that strength” the monster was getting closer now “please protect me, let me join you. Please..”

“You shouldn’t be here” Pale arms gripped the poor man and pushed him up against the tree. “What are you doing here?”. The light of a single green eye gazed down upon him, gradually dulling, giving away the existence of another, blue, one. The druid couldn’t speak, his mind racing as he prayed that the tree would answer. He thought for sure that he would run out of time when suddenly the monster seemed to lose control as the green eye blazed up again, starting to invade the blue. He let go off the druid and writhed in pain as mumbling started to fill the air once again. “Kill him, kill him, he’s seen me, I need to kill him” For a second the undead turned to the druid and picked up a dagger, a green globe at the shaft painting a dull glow that partly lighted up his face. 

Pale skin, brown hair and a normally soft face showed in the green light. Tainted green tears were falling down his cheeks. He was crying. Another shift and he seemed to regain control as he dropped the dagger and started rambling, desperate eyes searching the druids. “Please kill me, I didn’t kill them, they forced me, I’m not their puppet” Finally the tree was responding. The druid could feel it absorbing him. “I-I didn’t ask for this” Only a few more seconds. As he started to get consumed by the tree he realized that he felt sorry for the undead standing in front of him. He was showing clear signs of turning and was sure to become a strong asset to the Scourges armies. A sad fate indeed. “Not theirs” the man sobbed “Not theirs” 

The slender man fell down on the ground, body shaking with sobs. Green ichor painted the black grass as mist started to envelop the scene. The druid didn’t care anymore. To him everything was black. He did listen to the last words from the man though. It was a sobbed plea “Not theirs, I’m Jack”. 

———————————

The news reached the other lodges the very next evening. It was still rumours but everyone knew they were true. It seemed the whole of the 6th had disappeared during a capture mission the night before. Nobody knew where they had gone but a hunter from the third lodge had heard screams from the Forests heart the last night they were seen. 

Among the more superstitious of the hunters an unsettling rumour had started to spread together with the news of the 6ths disappearance. They talked about writhing darkness and whispers from inside the forest driving hunters mad. “The Old Ones” were brought up in whispers by fireplaces and phrases as “Wicked medium” and “Shadow walker” circulated. The fact was that more reports of missing people had been arriving since just about a couple weeks ago but never made it known as the death of hunters was quite common. 

Both news spread quickly through Silverpine with a warning for all hunters to be careful. It had been calm in the capitals lately and it was difficult to find criminals to fill the spots.

———————————

The news didn’t leave the seventh hunters lodge unshook either as Felix and Wade barely managed to hold Mark off of the poor courier who sat quivering under the dining table. “Let go off me!” Mark hit Felix in his attempt to escape, one hit too many it seemed, as he was brusquely pulled back. “Mark. Does that look like a strong man to you?” Felix pointed at the puppy eyed courier and Mark growled. “It’s his fault. Even after he heard the news he still refuses to let me hunt”

“Come on Mark. Don’t be such a whiny baby” A lone voice shouted from the far side of the room. “Shut up Bob!” Mark and Felix shouted in one voice, Wade just giggled nervously. “Let’s.. let’s just let him go shall we?” He motioned toward the courier. “He’s clearly not able to handle Marks aggressive mode”. That made the courier scowl. “Yes, you’re right” Felix let Mark go with a pat on the head. “He’s rather weak” 

“A-am not!” The courier protested and started to sit up. He failed miserably though as he didn’t count for the table and everyone around him winced as a loud bonk was heard. When they looked under the table the poor man was lying there unconscious. Felix sighed “Will you take him Wade?” Wade made a mock honour as he pulled out and flung the unconscious fellow over his shoulder. “Yessir”. Felix repeated the gesture back at him before turning to the rather morose looking hunter by his side. 

They stayed silent for a while, both minding their own business until Felix in a rather serious voice asked “Are you never happy Mark?” The hunter in question looked up at the ceiling, staying silent for a moment before answering. “No” ... “I don’t see the use in it”. Felix flashed one of his rare “non sassy” smiles. “Alright bro” He patted Marks shoulder “I’m sure you’ll find someone who could make you happy one day.” Mark didn’t know if he chuckled because he was grossed out or because he actually believed that crap. “We’ll see” he forced a weak smile and gave his fellow hunter a light push in the back. “Leave me alone now. Go piss off Bob or something instead. He and Wade look like they are having way too much fun anyway” Felix turned back as he started to walk over to the others, stopping for a second. “You up for hunting later?” Mark actually grinned as the guys up back cheered at the suggestion, all except the courier on Wades shoulder who looked rather sick. “You know I am” With those last words Felix ran over to the others. Immediately managing to piss everyone off with his sass.

Mark sighed as he cast one final glance over at them. They were so lively, it hurt his head. Sitting down on the broad stairs leading down to the lookout, or “the greenhouse” as they had started to call it since Wade had invaded the area with his plants. The greenhouse had one wall open to the living room, a short flight of stairs leading down to it. Big windows covered the exterior of the room making justice to the outlook title, although it was more of an extension of the living room. The floor, walls and ceiling of the room was covered in all kinds of greenery and to the far left a rather worn down dark green arm chair with sewn on patches of different cloth stood half hidden under a large, tree like plant. Honestly. Mark pushed away some leaves. He didn’t get how Wade managed to get anything to grow in this blasted place. He wondered if his own plant would be happier down here.. maybe grow to be like one of those back at his home.. Mark interrupted the thought abruptly. There was no use thinking of such useless things

Letting out a puff of air he looked back up and out the windows. The sun had just set but the last beams of light lingered and would’ve blinded him had they not been so weak. They were so red. It reminded him of the blood he had seen all too much of. On pure reflex he flexed his hands. He could still feel the blood from his latest kill on them. 

As the sun at last gave up its grip and the last beam of light died out Mark watched the darkness creep toward the house. He had seen the dark come toward the house many times but this time it felt different, it felt touchable, as if the darkness itself was a living thing.

Frowning slightly Mark stood up, walking over to the window and placing his hands on it. The glass felt cool against his skin and as he looked out he thought he could feel a pulse beat against the thin glass panel. Shapes were moving in the darkness. Gargantuan monsters missing faces and with tentacles for arms were lumbering through the darkness. They looked like no more than spectres and soon Mark realized that the pulse was not theirs. Someone was in there. Just out of sight.

Mark narrowed his eyes and just for a moment, a split second, a figure appeared from the darkness. The figure seemed to lag in and out of the dark, only staying visible for small intervals of time. But after some time it stilled, as if it felt something was off. 

As Mark watched the figure stabilized and he could distinguish the outlines of a man. It seemed he had been wearing the dark as some kind of cloak as when he shed it the filter like layer that had been covering him dispersed into black smoke, soon fading back into the dark. 

The man that appeared was slender and pale. His clothes were torn and covered with dirt but Mark recognized the garment of a rogue. He wore dark brown boots, heavily dirtied, and dark cargo pants, probably with multiple thieves tools and poisons hidden in their pockets. On top he wore what resembled a black t-shirt partly covered with a leather breastplate, leaving the waist and legs mobile. Over the shirt he had a torn black cloth jacket ending in an equally roughed up hood that was currently pulled over his head. One of his shoulders were protected by a simple leather shoulderpad and his lower arms were armed with wrist guards of the same material. The same went for his hands that were clad in simple gloves that were palms only, leaving holes for the fingers. Though the most interesting thing with the man was the daggers that adorned his large leather belt. The shaft of the daggers each had lime green stones embedded in them, shining with a malicious glow. Those daggers were no low tier weapons. They were poisonous as fuck. 

Mark grimaced and let his eyes travel up the rogues body. His arms were cut up. Sudden images from the night before flashed before his eyes and he crinched. It was possible.. as soon as the thought entered his mind he swiftly moved his gaze up to look at the eyes. And then he froze.

Gazing from in under the hood was two blazing green eyes. They were staring straight at Mark and had he not himself been paralyzed by the sudden contact he could’ve sworn that the rogue looked just as surprised as he did. Some strange pull made him come closer to the glass, placing the hand he had removed in surprise only seconds earlier back on the thin protection. 

For what felt like eternities both of them seemed unable to break contact and slowly, surely, something started to happen. The sick green glow of the rogues eyes started to dim and Mark could feel himself relaxing as clear ocean blue replaced the sceptic. It was as if a spell had been lifted when the rogue blinked and just for a second a small smile played on pink lips half hidden in the shadow of the hood. The tiny reaction made Marks heart race in ways he knew it shouldn’t and as a sudden feeling of dread clutched at his heart he took one small step back from the window. 

He never once took his eyes off the other man and thus saw the effect of his rejection. The rogue was clutching his head now, his face was hidden from Mark but he could tell he was hurting. “No” a small whisper escaped him as he swiftly placed his hand back on the glass. It was so cold it was hurting him now. He hadn’t meant to hurt the rogue. Fate seemed to ignore his intentions as the man twitched and let out a scream. It tore at Mark in ways he didn’t think he would ever be forced to feel again and without realizing it he was turning to run to the door. But in right that moment. Just before he turned. The other man glanced up at him and yet again caught his gaze. He was shivering now. His eyes having started to glow green once again. There was a desperate plea in them, they made him remember the words on the shack. “Help me” But there was nothing he could do. The man was losing and Mark wouldn’t do anything about it. Besides, why should he? The man was prey. He should kill him. Mark told himself that that was the reason he so desperately wanted to run outside and also the reason he couldn’t look away. 

For a moment all was quiet as the poor man still watched him, waiting for something Mark couldn’t give. The quiet didn’t last long as his attention was immediately drawn when the man convulsed once again. This time he fell down on his knees as green goo hit the ground. Violent shivers shook the slender man as he seemed to desperately try to resist something. One last shiver and the whole darkness outside stilled. 

A green drop hit the ground. Two. Three. Slowly the darkness started to swirl once again. This time around the man, that raised. When he looked up at Mark again both eyes were ablaze with the same sceptic green that had hit the ground before. The rogue tilted his head and a sly smile played on his lips as he blew a kiss to Mark before he once again got consumed by the shadows and disappeared.

—————————

Mark barely noticed how the other hunters came running, how Felix shook him and Wade tried to stop his eyes from staring blankly out into the darkness. At last the thing that woke him was a hard pain sprouting from his left cheek.

“Mark ya bastard” Felix held one of his hands, blowing gently on it as he cursed “damn bro, how can your face be so hard? It’s like metal, you..” Before he had time to finish Wade squeezed himself between them, a worried look on his face “we heard a scream”. Now that made Mark wake up. As reality dawned on him he pushed the interfering hunters aside and started walking toward the front door, picking up and equipping his weapons and armour in the process. “It was nothing” He turned around. “But I think our prey is close”.

First the other hunters just looked at each other in confusion before suddenly it seemed to click for them and they broke into grinns. “What are we waiting for then?” Felix whistled and short thereafter two mops appeared beside him. “Let’s go hunting”. 

“Oh, and” Felix turned on the doorstep, glancing at Wade. “Bring the courier”. Wade grinned back at the leader as he left the lodge, holding the courier tighter. “Lucky you, seems like you’ll get to see the seventh division in action” The courier only grew paler.


	5. The Forest Heart- 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and the others finally go out on their long awaited hunt but as the trail leads them into the Forests Heart they realize that some things have changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya. Once again I’m a late bastard *bows down deeply* But this time I’ve got an excuse since I haven’t been doing too well these last holidays. My minds not exactly nice and there’s just too many work applications to write too! *internal screaming* 
> 
> *clears throat* Well, anyways. I’m not here to make you worry about a doofus like me but rather about our dear Jackaboy and Markimoo. *lights candles* please enjoy *fades into shadows*
> 
> Oh, and maybe, just maybe, Mark turned a little nicer in this one? I’m not sure. Its super late and I havent proof read! *manic giggles*

Cool air welcomed the hunters as they stepped outside the lodge. A faint mist covered the ground and above the treetops a clear sky painted with stars was showing. As they entered into the night a faint light spread across the ground when a flame was lighted. The courier seemed to flinch at that as he meekly said “a-are you stupid?” Six pairs of eyes turned to gaze at him. “You can’t light a fire here, they’ll see you for sure” 

Felix grinned back at the shoulder ridden man as he patted Bobs shoulder, making the man flinch “My good man, what would you say was more stupid, entering a forest where the opponent has dark vision without a light or entering the same place with one.” He stopped for a second as Mark nudged him and leaned in, whispering something. Felix looked back at the courier with a sassy smile “oh yes, Markimoo here just mentioned. Apparently our enemy is the darkness” Mark grimaced, that hadn’t been what he was saying at all, but apparently the comment had the desired effect as the courier shut his mouth. 

For a moment all was silent as everyone rejoiced over their victory in silencing the man, it didn’t last too long though as one of them decided to get them going. “So” Bob shrugged off Felix hand and placed the flame he had created in a lantern fastened to his belt “you know where we’re going Mark” The hunter in question nodded. “Keep your eyes out for floating green dots”.

—————————

“Hey” Wayde whispered as he waved Mark over. “Could this be it?” Mark crouched down beside the other and followed his gaze. There on the ground the grass was stained with green liquid, it was glowing faintly and as Mark reached out and poked it with the tip of his shortsword it flared up for a moment. “Yeah, that would be it” He stood up and got Felix attention. “Let’s have our dear dog man track it”.

—————

The trail showed to be much easier to track than they had first expected it to. As they made their way through the silent forest it was a straight march, the dogs seemed to never lose scent of their target “Kind of strange for a teleporting, darkness wearing undead to leave such obvious tracks isn’t it?” Wayde voiced the question everyone had had beating at their minds since the second they started. “Yeah” Bob was the first to answer. “Its too easy” He moved his hand down to rest on the glass covering the flame hanging by his hips “we better prepare for difficult combat. Because one thing’s for sure” His face turned grim as the pines surrounding them grew ever taller “This is no normal undead”.

Mark who had been making his way through the vegetation just a few metres ahead of Bob and Wayde had heard their conversation. Bob was completely right, this was not their usual prey. What he had seen of the undead was not any normal behaviour. He tightened the grip around his polearm, another of his many weapons. It was so exciting. Mark glanced over at Felix, making sure that no one saw the crazed smile that was playing on his lips. He had been placed in the seventh division for a reason. He was not here to play with the small ones, that was the 5th and thirds thing. No, he had been placed in the Enforcement division because of his insatiable bloodlust. 

He chuckled. Oh, he had killed so many, all scum of course. It was just that the leaders of Stormwind had not seen it. Not seen how they had been talking shit, spitting on people that were less lucky than them. He didn’t feel any regret for having killed them off. What he did feel sad about was how he hadn’t killed enough. Felix could never know. Mark closed his eyes briefly, forcing his crazed heartbeats to slow. Yes, he would kill this dark bastard before he. Anyone. Could hurt those he cared about ever again. “Chica, mothers, I promise...” Not completely unexpected golden fur filled his vision and his thought wandered to the puppy resting back at the house. But since he had been prepared he suppressed the angst and quickly cut the thought. He then breathed out slowly, shaping his mad rage into cold resolve. 

———————————-

 

When the hunters first entered among the tall pines of Forests heart they quickly noticed two things. The tracks they had been following had disappeared and so had the exit. Upon realizing this the courier yelped in fear but was quickly silenced as Wade suddenly let go of him and placed him on the cold, slightly damp, ground. “From here everyone walks by themselves” he patted the terrified mans shoulder and smiled. “Keep close” 

Everything went dark when Bob extinguished the light and the courier shook slightly as Wade carefully put something in his hands, it was cold but still emanated a strange kind of warmth. As he understood the true meaning of the larger mans words he looked up, words on his lips, but the other man had already almost disappeared into the dark. “Thank you..” trembling slightly the smaller man placed the locker around his neck and swallowed hard. This could very well turn out to be a one way trip.

“Hey” the courier was pulled from his thoughts by a pair of strong hands and a light slap on the head. “You coming?” Blue eyes glinted in the stray beams of moonlight as Felix grinned and gently pushed the smaller man in front of him. Surprised the courier stumbled but was caught by another pair of arms. Mark sighed as he practically threw the poor fellow at Bob that was standing just a few feet ahead. As he hit the other mans back he was yet again grabbed and shoved ahead. The man was quickly getting tired of being treated as their personal punching bag for no reason but as he turned around to complain he paled and would've been on the ground had not Bob caught him.

At the spot he had been standing in just a few seconds ago there was now a large tree. Felix and Mark stood beside it, Felix seemingly busy with blaming the almost-death of their beloved postman on Wade while Mark inspected the trunk. After a few seconds the broad shouldered man turned around and in mere seconds grabbed and pulled the other two over to the others. “That tree was felled by something”

“Well duh” Felix pouted as he crossed his arms. “Its obvious someone, or something, doesn't want us here.” Wade added. “We were probably lured here so they’d have an easier time killing us off”

Bob watched silently as the other hunters argued, his hand still on the couriers shoulder. “W-why aren't you stopping them?!” The courier suddenly snapped. “Someone is obviously after us but all you people do is argue! And where is the fucking light?!” 

The larger hunter sent a chilling glare his way as he grimaced. “They’re loud idiots. But they know how to survive. And about the light..” Bob gestured slightly with his hand and a small flame appeared in the centre of his palm again. The reaction from the forest was immediate as a thousand eyes lit up between the large pines. The courier could barely stand now as all his anger drained. Bob, of course, saw the change and closed his hand, a small smile playing on his lips as the flame went out and all the eyes shut again. “I noticed it when we first entered. Its easy to think the light will protect you in here but it seems like it only draws attention. This place is not normal and while it did work outside using light in here will most likely only result in that you after some time grow so dependent on it that you think you will die if you put it out. If it goes on for long enough I suspect you truly will.” The courier stayed silent. How stupid of him. To think that he, a mere courier, could teach these people anything.

Bob saw how the man shrunk and sighed internally. Such a pain. As tenderly as he could manage he put his hand on the couriers shoulder and said “Don't worry about it. You cant know everything and light is actually good for one thing” He nodded at the other hunters that had abruptly interrupted their argument to sprint toward the offending party member. “Bro, were those eyes? And if so.. whaaaat the hell are you. DOING.” Felix almost attacked but was held back by Wade and Mark. “This man is an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to talk but he’s got one thing right. What are you doing?” Mark asked with one eyebrow raised. “Oh, just doing some fishing” Bob shrugged and turned around so they couldn't see his smile when the others exchanged confused glances. 

In the end it was the courier who broke the silence as he sighed and said “Lets just get on with it. The sooner I get out of here the better.”

——————————

“No” 

A wail broke through the vegetation of the forest but still couldn't seem to break the compact silence that rested over the cursed trees. It had once been the voice of a man of the light but now it had been twisted into something guttural, almost animalistic.

“No. Kill them before they do, kill them before they do. Elisabeth. No. Nonono. I didn't do it!” 

The forest itself seemed to make way for the lonely shadow that walked it. Mad ramblings never stopped as it clumsily navigated the endless pines, constantly running into trunks and stumbling over roots and despite its apparent lack of bodily control it never fell as the very forest seemed to catch it every time it was about to stop, constantly hurrying it on, shoving it towards something. Bloodshot eyes glazed over from fatigue and madness searched the surroundings as the hulking figure felt its way through the forest. It had traversed a creek when it finally heard something over its own sick ramblings and the forests silence. There were voices. Metal glinted in the scarce beams of moonlight as a wicked smile formed on cracked lips and he uttered the first coherent sentence since his party had been slaughtered. “Not my fault. Its theirs.”

—————————————

The party had walked the forest for what felt like eternities. All the while having to avoid constant danger from falling trunks, sudden pitfalls and thorny bushes that sprouted from nowhere. “This goddamn forest” Mark kicked another bush. They had been walking for forever and the only clue that they were in fact getting anywhere were how dense the forest had become and also how its attempts to keep them away had become more and more constant. But despite the desperate attempts the hunters wouldn't stop, no matter how many times the forest writhed in pain when it was once again forced to take new forms it couldn't seem to stop the intruders. It frustrated it to no extent and to the wanderers surprise it wailed.

As a deep tremor shook the ground all the trees waved and started to make sounds too close to the sound of someone crying. It sent shivers down almost every hunters spine as they looked around with slightly weary eyes. There was only one who continued on unfazed, and that was a broad shouldered man with dark eyes. 

Mark didn't care much for the forests plea, he knew it couldn't hurt him. No. He wasnt worried about that. The only thing that worried Mark, well not exactly worry but more like concern him, was the apparent lack of undead. The Forests heart had always been a nest for undead but now a darker, more eerie, feeling had replaced everything familiar with the place. When a stick broke close to the party he almost got his hopes up for a moment but was only to be disappointed when he heard his companions almost kill the courier on behalf of his stick breaking. 

There probably wasn't anything remarkable or dangerous going on in these forests except for a sudden decrease in undead but still the dark eyed man couldn't help but feel like they were watched. Despite all his senses screaming Mark put it aside for now. But titans know he wouldn't let it go.

Shortly thereafter the sound of flowing water broke through the wall of thick pines. In the dead silence that had been it was no doubt a merry sound to hear and all the hunters immediately felt so very relieved as their vitality returned to them. Something was off though and Mark really hoped that he wasn't the only one who noticed the traces of blood on the ground or how the air around them suddenly was too loud. Frowning he searched the other hunters gazes and caught all except one. Felix was the first one to take initiative as he said “We should mo-“

No one had time to act before the courier was down on his knees by the water, already cupping it and sipping eagerly. 

For a moment everything was dead silent. Even the voices in the air had quietened. Everyone was anticipating something, although none knew exactly what.

When the courier at last turned around and saw the others stare at him in anticipation-filled horror he flinched and with a sheepish smile asked “w-what? I-its good. You should t-ta...st..e.” The thin mans voice fell away as his blue eyes glazed over with a layer of white and his hands fell down to rest at his sides.

This time Wade moved to act but Felix put out an arm and stopped him mid-step “Don't”

For at least 5 minutes the man stayed still with his eyes staring into nothingness and his lips slightly parted as they moved slowly. Mouthing words only he could seem to hear.

Mark had just about had enough when the courier suddenly stood up and smiled. At first Wade responded to the smile and started to talk but was once again quickly hushed by Felix. When the courier couldn’t seem to make contact with the kinder of them he looked at the others pleadingly but only got wary gazes back. Then the courier opened his mouth and tried to speak but he seemed to lag slightly as he looked down at his hands, clutched them slowly, and then tried again. “P-please” The words uttered were shaky and awkwardly uttered and for a moment Mark wondered why the other man suddenly had lost his speech. That thought he quickly got rid of though as he, just for a brief second, met the couriers eyes and recognized someone in them. Someone who didn't belong in that man.

Blue eyes filled with so much sorrow watched the hunters as the thing currently inside the courier tried to speak again. “Please” this time it was a little steadier and in what would've been an almost adorable way in any other circumstances it seemed to encourage the creature “don't pro..ceed.” While the thing seemed to gather more energy Mark watched disinterestedly how the water behind the courier grew darker and what looked like oil started to coat the water that now flowed upstream. The creature hadn't noticed yet but forms started to show in the once so clear water, and they were moving toward the man. 

Normally the life of a single dirty royal courier wouldn't have made any difference to Mark but now for some stupid ass reason he just couldn’t get the familiarity of those eyes he had just seen out of his mind and right before the tendril of black water curled around the couriers ankle he cursed his weak heart and screamed.

“Watch out!” 

Two voices intertwined at that exact moment and for a moment Mark didn’t see the courier but a pale man with eyes like the deep Stillwater sea and hair the same colour as the earth. Just for a second, barely the beat of a heart their eyes locked and had Mark later not convinced himself that this was impossible he would have sworn that in right that moment nothing else existed.

It was like a harsh landing when Mark came to it and heard the surprised shouts of his comrades. For just one more heartbeat his eyes searched for the other man without his consent before letting him turn around. And from there everything happened fast.

The dark eyed man had no time to react as a rusted blade was brought down upon him from behind. His friends tried to reach him but as the world went into slowmotion Mark knew they wouldn’t reach him in time. He could see the fear on their faces so clearly and found himself thinking that such expressions did not belong on the strongest hunters he knew before everything burst into light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows out candles* Since I ended this one on a cliffhanger (and its short) I’ll be quick about the next one ^^


	6. The Forest heart- 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again its late but now my tablet is dying as well! (Woooooo!) *waves pom poms* I haven’t proof read this one so there might be some small errors. But please bear with me *bows*

It was too bright. Slowly Mark put his hands up to try and shield his eyes but found that they were not moving. Everything around him was white as the snow that used to fall in his homeland in the short winters. He recalled how he, his brother and Chica had played on the large fields of Tirisfal Glades and how they would return cold to their bones after dark and their parents would be waiting by the door with hot milk and blankets. Then they would sit by the fireplace and with exaggerated gestures talk about the adventures they had experienced and everyone would laugh and fall asleep as the fire slowly went out. 

It was the very same snow that years later had fallen over the small cottage when Mark said goodbye to his dad as he left the house to join the army. And it was the same snow that fell from the rooftops when their family had hurried out to greet him as he returned. 

For a moment everything turned black as Mark recalled the pained face of his father when he had stood on the doorstep. Not one of them had understood it then and Mark still couldn’t say that he understand it now, but when they in the darkest parts of autumn were woken up by a loud scream and hurried down to the bottom floor they saw their dad on the ground, writhing with a flaming arrow through his heart. Above him three soldiers had stood. Two men wearing light armour and in front of them a tall elven woman. Mark had dared to look into her eyes then and titans knew he couldn’t erase those red orbs from his mind. He recalled how she had told her henchmen something before turning around and walking out the door without a second glance.

At that time Mark had only been about 14 and as he saw the large men with strange clothing approach him he did the only thing he could. He grabbed his brother and ran. Now the fire had caught in the floor of the hallway and he had tried to save his mom but.. after she had seen her husband on the floor she wouldn’t budge. Helpless he had clutched his brothers hand as they ran, and ran, and ran. 

They only stopped when they were safe inside the vegetation surrounding their acres. With their house in flames they had watched as the two armoured men had dragged out their mother and chica and in the cold light of the mother moon swiftly cut through the only life the two had ever known. When they watched their loved ones fall to the ground Mark didn’t recall crying as much as feeling an intense pain and confusion as to why someone had hurt them. Then Thomas had grabbed his hand and as the sky opened up and quenched the flames they disappeared into the forest.

After that they ran until they could no longer stand. In their escape Thomas had started acting weird as he lost consciousness multiple times and large wounds started to appear on his body. When they finally were found by a wandering party of adventurers Mark begged of them to help his brother and after some wary glances the youngest of them, a slender rogue with blue eyes he think, had taken Thomas into the forest and then returned alone. When he had asked what they had done the warrior of the party had only smiled and said that his brother was okay now.

That was the last time Mark ever saw him. 

————————

In the waking world Felix sat on the damp ground beside his resting friend. “Will he be alright?” Slowly Wade approached and sat down beside the blue eyed hunter. Felix patted the dog resting in his lap absentmindedly and didn’t seem to be responding at all at first. Finally though he moved and waved his hand in front of the unconscious mans face, creating a dark shadow over his eyes. “I think he will be alright. He wasn’t hurt after all” The blonde nodded toward the twisted form of a man lying cast aside further away. 

“It must’ve been the shock” Wade sighed. “Maybe it was stupid of me to give mr postman over there my necklace” The large man tilted his head in the direction of the unconscious courier, currently together with the attacker under close inspection by Bob. “Now we’ve only attracted attention” Felix only waved his hand dismissively “Don’t even think about it. That flash of light pretty much saved us all.” He stood up and stretched “And besides, this forest has a mind of its own. Your flash of light most likely only hurried things up a bit.” He grinned as he twirled his blade. “We’re gonna clear this Zero deaths.”

———————————

When the fog clouding his mind finally started to clear Mark blinked and was at once convinced that he was dead and that this was hell. Everywhere was compact darkness and surrounding him was at least six pairs of eyes staring down at him. Then something humped his leg and a string of curses were heard as one of the pairs moved while screaming “Dammit Edgar! Du kommer bli pestsmittad” 

Soon the other eyes moved as well and Mark realized that this was in no way death, but could quite possibly be hell. He tried to sit up but a sharp pain shot through his head, successfully canceling the attempt. “Hey, hey, don’t move” the pair of eyes that Mark now labeled as ‘Wade’ moved down as a large hand was placed behind his back and gently helped him up. “You’re suffering from shock.” Mark used all his spare energy to send a ‘no shit’ glare his way. “Well, you see. I kind of gave this fellow the soul necklace for protection but...it backfired.” Wade laughed awkwardly and carefully let go off Mark against a pine in favour of patting their very own tortured postman on the shoulder. The man in question flinched at the touch and was surely about to say something offending when he was interrupted by Bob. “He was really lucky, that thing that possessed him didn't seem too aggressive but the shadows behind him sure did. Somehow it seems the light freed him. Oh, and he’s probably much worse off than you too. So don't try to complain you weakling.” Bob finished with a smug grin that Mark could literally feel even though it was too dark to see clearly, like a slap in the face. He decided to ignore it.

“If you used the soul necklace it won’t be long before we’re found again” Shaking off the irritating dizziness Mark stood up “We need to move on right now.” The other hunters nodded in unison and started to stand up when Mark noticed the twisted corpse on the ground. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, that’s just our friendly neighbourhood killer” Wade walked over and patted the guys shoulder. “Or..” Bob made his way over “otherwise known as the man Samuel. Hunter of the sixth division. I think you remember.” 

Oh yes, Mark remembered alright. Samuel was a total dick that he had met once when their divisions had to cooperate in the solving of a series of turnings. Mark had never liked him but even that man didn’t deserve an end like this. Breathing out slowly he turned around and ordered “burn him”. It seemed that Wade wanted to protest but Felix only nodded, picked up a stick and handed it to Bob. Seconds later the forest lighted up as the man known as Samuel finally got to rest.

The hunters that watched the fire couldn’t rest though and for a moment Mark, despite his love to kill, just wanted to sink through the ground when their friendly courier said “Hey. Has there always been a light over there?”

——————————

To the party’s horror a small light quickly approached them in the darkness, sometimes disappearing behind thick trunks. With the fire still burning it was impossible the source of that light hadn’t noticed them and deeming the circumstances there also was no way that it was friendly.

Mark faintly registered the courier fidgeting in the outskirts of his vision and silently nodded to Wade to dampen the fire. Wade did as suggested and soon a small hissing sound followed by a cloud of smoke and then lastly darkness passed the party by. If the lightbearer or lightbearers had ill intent now at least they had the upper hand. 

By pure habit all hunters faded into shadow, the courier rather roughly pulled along, and soon the area around the creek was empty save for their spoils of war, still smouldering beneath a damp jacket.

A few moments passed and when the light came closer voices started to appear. They were humanoid and sounded so very tired. The sound always too low to comprehend the words and no matter how close the other party got none knew what they were talking about but when the others came into view there was clear to see that something was off about them.

Felix was the first to stand up, subtlety motioning for the others to stay, primarily the courier who would be completely defenceless and a hindrance in a fight. While the others watched their blonde colleague walk away Mark muttered to himself, he had just missed out on a great kill. Felix better not take this from him. 

“What are you doing here?” As Felix emerged from the shadows the other group stopped. For a moment they only stared at him, strangely not seeming surprised from the mans sudden appearance. Then the pale woman who held the light slowly blinked and almost burst out crying, although Mark thought it had a forced feeling to it. Even if Felix sensed this anomaly too he didn’t let it show as he gently smiled and said. “We have been so worried. Sixth division, why did you disappear?” The now named division stayed deathly still for another moment before the woman talked again. “We- we need help.” Felix crossed his arms and let his weight rest on one of his hips sassily. “Oh?, why’s that?”

The blonde woman took the bait nicely and grew obviously angry, voice harsh as she gestured at her comrades. “Can’t you figure that out yourself? We were wounded, by a monst- ” she was rudely interrupted when Bob emerged from the shadows as well. “If there’s a monster in there..” he gestured at the forest with his free hand “then, I hope you don’t mind me asking, why are you not dead?” 

“W-well, obviously we ran awa-“ Felix, a mask of complete seriousness plastered on his face, suddenly out of nowhere popped up behind her and put his arm around her neck before she could finish “ I don’t think that that’s what Bob wants you to answer him.” He leaned in close and whispered “If you fought a monster, how can you still move with that hole in your gut?” Grinning widely Felix let go off his, now shaking, victim and in a final dramatical gesture shouted “Your body is as cold as your heart, and I can imagine it hasn’t beaten since the day a certain man took your life hasn’t it... Elisabeth?”

That was the straw that broke the camels back for the woman when the light suddenly went out. Then silence. Mark sensed the calm before the storm and quickly reached out to pull Bob in. The man let out a disapproving sound as he was dragged through the bushes and didn’t grow happier when he learnt that he was to stand by and guard the courier. “Don’t let it get to you. Its just that in this small space I’m afraid we need melee fighters more than a mage.” Before the disgruntled man had a chance to protest Mark stood up and tapped Wade on the shoulder. “Let’s help our dog man”.

The man in question nodded in response and drew his greatsword before stalking closer to the place Felix was last seen. Quickly fading into darkness. Mark had just started to move when a loud scream broke through the night. He didn’t recognize the voice but couldn’t deny the fact that Felix could be hurt, their opponents were a division after all. As everything went quiet Mark only heard a quiet whimper from their protégé that he ignored in favour of calming his heartbeat and restraining his bloodlust. He drew his polearm and let a grin paint his face, at last, this time he wouldn’t let anyone take this from him.

When Mark joined the battle it was already a full blown war. What had seemed so calm just a few feet away was now a storm of blades and arrows coming from every direction. Now he let his bloodlust shine through, immediately getting the attention of one of the enemies burlier warriors. The brute was partly hid in the shadows but Mark could clearly see how much was wrong with this man, his head was hanging tilted to the right, separated to the bone by a deep cut. His eyes were unseeing, his body unpropotional and his mouth moved constantly as it muttered something. It held a big mace adorned with spikes in one hand and let out a ghostly wail as it sighted the irritating insect that threatened it. 

Mark only grinned wider when the brute clumsily swung the mace. Childsplay. He waited to the very last second before dodging to the right, rolling under the weapon right before it hit the ground. He then swiftly spun around and brought his polearm into the monsters gut. 

Ages of experience hunting undead made it evident to Mark that this wouldn’t kill it so before the monster had time to collect himself and attack again he used the polearm as a springboard and jumped into the air, drawing his shortswords in the process. When he landed on the brutes shoulder it had apparently resorted to another strategy as it tried to grab him. But it hadn’t counted on its opponent to have more weapons and wailed in pain as two blades pierced its neck. It had gotten a hold on one of Marks legs though and as it writhed it, perhaps unintentionally, flung the other man into the ground in what could’ve been a killing blow. Now enraged it let Mark lie there as it once again picked up its mace and screamed in rage.

“What the hell Mark?” Wade barrelled past the grounded man, a slender elven woman on the tip of his blade, unnervingly enough still trying to bite his head off despite the sword through her gut. “Did that lightshock burn your braincells or something?” He threw the woman on the ground and for a brief second his eyes shone with gold as he finished the monster off with a flash of light. “That’s right” Now Felix backed into their conversation, he was a little cut up but as he fired arrow after arrow into the dark both the other hunters blessed their luck when they saw what he was fighting. 

The monster that lurked towards Felix wasn’t even close to human anymore. It was an amalgamation of bodies stitched together and you could see eyes and screaming faces where they obviously wasn’t supposed to be. It was a mix of at least four other people and Mark, as he slowly stood up and barely dodged a swipe from his opponent, saw traces of night elven, human and draenei skin. The amalgamation let out a pained scream as it charged Felix and swiped at him with its long clawed fingers. He barely dodged but was almost hit by Marks monster instead. “For fucks sake Mark, take care of your monsters goddammit!” Mark only chuckled and pulled out his polearm, stopping the monster mid-attack effortlessly. “I am”

The rest of the fight went on with only minor injuries, Bob helped out as best he could and the courier even sneakily cut those unfortunate enough to wander too close to his bush. Yet there was one thing that was amiss and as Mark finished his monster off with a close range arrowshot he asked “has anyone seen that woman?” 

“Elisabeth?” Felix pet his dogs absentmindedly while inspecting the body of the amalgamation. “Maybe she ran off” he answered jokingly, but his face remained stern. 

“I don’t know.” Wade sighed. “She seemed awfully intent on killing us” the words barely had time to leave his mouth before it was replaced by a scream when his clothes suddenly burst into flames, armour growing unbearably hot. 

“Shit” Bob was the first one to reach his hurting friend and with a gesture of his hand runes appeared beneath him and a gentle rain fell down. Had not Wade been hurting everyone surely would’ve laughed at Bob, calling him mr shammy and so on. But as Felix hurried over as well Mark cursed and looked into the shadows around them. The moon stood high above the treetops but somehow the light didn’t quite reach them. 

It was only a matter of time before they would be burned again and he should be tactical but Mark seriously didn’t have any patience left. He let out a low growl and let go off all attempts to hide his rage as he marched right into the darkness.

As soon as he left the relative calm of the creek the forest quietened down considerably and to any normal human the darkness and silence would’ve been suffocating, but Mark simply shook the unease off as he stilled and waited.

The woman apparently couldn’t resist the temptation of easy prey for long and soon a flash of light, less than a millisecond long, zapped past Mark who had dodged it narrowly. “Come out” Marks voice was calm and collected, no hints of bloodlust shining through. 

The forest responded with silence, as expected, and Mark chuckled as he heard someone moving further in. She obviously wasn’t herself anymore but whoever had twisted her had not succeeded in removing that clumsiness. She was too eager to kill too, her bloodlust was shining through the forest like one big target. She may have more brains than her colleagues but the difference was marginal. 

No matter. Mark finished his silent analysis and drew his bow. He had no time to play. A single arrow was fired through the darkness and with pin point precision passed through the thick vegetation. A sickening thud and then a burst of light as the arrow lighted the target on fire. It was an unusual act of mercy from the brown eyed hunter and the woman was dead before she hit the ground.

———————————

When Mark returned to the others there was a big fire burning further into the forest and on the ground, a safe distance from the creek Wade was laid down. His clothes were scorched and large wounds covered his body as he was drifting in and out of a feverish sleep. 

Around him Bob and Felix were sat, the blonde discussing something heatedly with the other. The courier sat the farthest from the creek, but not close to the others either. He had hid his head in his arms and seemed to stare at nothing at all. All of them had dark circles under their eyes and when the thrill of the fight had left him Mark knew that he had them too.

Slowly he moved over to the others, patting the courier on his back kindly on the way. In here they were all brothers and it seemed obvious that they were running out of time.

When Mark sat down beside Bob the conversation from earlier had stopped. They sat in silence for a while before Felix slowly said. “I don’t think he will make it.” The truth in the sentence hit Mark like a sledgehammer in the gut and he resorted to nodding silently. “Its the price we pay” 

“But it’s too damn unfair!” Felix voice got the familiar tone that he always got when upset as he hit the ground with a clenched fist. “We need a healer goddammit!” Bob and Mark only watched with sad eyes as their friend was on the verge of crying. 

“We never should have entered” Bobs words only received silence but Mark found himself extremely, on the verge of furiously, against the suggestion. He didn’t know why he was so obsessed with finding the other man, with killing him, but he couldn’t turn around now. If anything he wanted to get up and continue right now. Bob and Felix obviously wasn’t up for that idea though and he, despite his desires, would not leave his friends so easily.

—————————————

In the end they decided to wait and see how Wades condition would develop. Mark pulled away from the group at this time and spent the following hours in the edge of the small clearing leaned against a tree. The courier was sleeping just a few feet away and Mark sighed as he turned his head to look at the man. It was such a pity, he would most likely die here, just like them. Mark didn’t care too much though. He had on several occasions tried to take his own life. About five times during his stay in Stormwind and maybe two times in the lodge before the other hunters came along. He didn’t remember the cause for any of the attempts but guessed that it was caused by a mix of the extreme loneliness and his memories that grew clearer after his friends had all gone separate ways. Something was amiss though, there was a big hole in his memory. Maybe it was something he had repressed. He didn’t really want to dig too deep, so he left it in favour of joining the complete emptiness that usually made up his mind.

———————————

Inside the forest, close to a certain clearing, something stirred. A soul who had long since become part of the endless pines suddenly awoke as a burst of warmth coursed through it. It was human warmth. Curious it opened its nonexistent eyes and sensed, something warm was resting against its trunk, a body perhaps? But it was living. So different from the cold ones who walked this forest. The soul recalled a time before this. A time that felt like ages ago but yet could also only be a few days. It didn’t know, time in the forest didn’t pass like it did for the humans. He, the soul vaguely recalled inhabiting the body of a man once, had been traversing the forest with his companions. They had been searching for something but, it had all gone wrong. After they drank the water, he didn’t, he had known, they were all killed. He had been the last one. He remembered the desperate way his heart had pounded and how his breathing had been too fast with the killer standing in front of him. He had prayed and the tree had listened, but for a price. 

For the first time since he became one with the tree the man resting inside thought of himself as a separate being. He now realized the danger he was in and he knew, he knew that he was still alive, wanted to be alive. Slowly he clutched his hands and released himself partly from his bindings. Then he bowed down and gave the man on the other side of his prison a wary nudge and whispered “please help me”

———————————

Mark was woken from his dreamless sleep suddenly and rudely as something nudged him pretty hard. When he looked around, still groggy, he only saw the courier, still asleep on the forest floor and his other friends in the same state further away. The creek filled the clearing with a gentle sound but it was also the only one Mark could register.

Grumbling to himself he made himself comfortable against the trunk again and started to nod off when another poke sent him flying. What the hell? Mark scrambled to stand on his feet and gazed through slitted eyes at the rude tree. When he warily approached it again it was with weapons drawn and as he got close enough he slowly, warily, poked the tree back. The response was immediate and rough as the tree seemed really happy for some reason and shook itself in a way that no tree ever should. 

———————

It worked! The soul could barely contain his excitement when the human seemed to react to him. He was weak now, weak after having his life drained for several days but the happiness and hope he felt greatly overshadowed that pain as he let himself influence the tree more and more. He needed to signal in some way, right now he was just a suspicious tree, but if he could...

———————- 

Mark watched baffled as the tree stopped its little happy dance and instead lowered one of its silver tinted branches. Not quite sure what to make of this strange piece of vegetation he warily put his hand on the branch and felt it move beneath his fingers. From the beginning he didn’t understand what the tree was getting at and only grew more confused as the tree formed the shapes more and more intensely. It even grabbed hold of him at one point, a mistake that almost made him cut off that branch. And as if that wasn’t enough, roots that suddenly appeared and made him stumble, strange sounds from it... Mark had just about had it with this tree.

————————-

The soul watched rather miserably as the other human failed to understand his messages. He tried to write in his hand, to form words with its roots, even to talk. But the man just wouldn’t understand! Frustrated it grabbed hold of his wrist and tried the most effective method yet. Yet the dumbass only responded by almost cutting off his arms. It was hopeless. Sulking the soul folded in on itself and cursed the stupidity of the lesser races.

—————————

The tree had stopped. Mark felt a little relieved and just wanted to sleep some more but there was something in how the tree looked now that caught his attention. The tree looked perfectly normal but in some weird way Mark could still clearly see it was sulking. “This is one weird ass tree” Mark muttered to himself but walked over to Bob anyway. Maybe in some strange way it could help Wade.

—————————-

A familiar warmth once again spread through the tree and stirred the soul sleeping inside. Not sure why the other man had returned it slowly turned but was surprised to see another man standing beside the doofus from earlier. He looked smart. Maybe he could save him. As new hope filled it the soul perked up and settled for a gentler approach as he gently placed his hand against the man on the other sides.

——————————

“Do you feel anything?” Mark stood beside Bob, who had placed his left hand up against the tree. “No” He removed his hand and looked over at Mark, fatigue evident in his eyes. “Are you sure you felt it?” 

“As sure as a man that got himself slapped away two times, yes” It was clear that Bob didn’t quite believe in his friend but there was something in Marks eyes that made him falter. “Why are you so determined anyway? You don’t usually care about anything”.

Mark hadn’t really expected that question and for a moment he was at a loss for words. “Let’s just call it hunters intuition”

Bob raised an eyebrow at that but put a hand up to the tree anyway. “Your intuition better be right this time” Mark was just about to ask what the hell the other man meant by that when Bobs eyes widened. Knowing exactly what he was feeling Mark kept in the background and watched. If anyone could help this tree it would be Bob, their very own magician and special curse lifter.

Time went on and after a good 40 minutes Bob finally separated from the tree, looking quite dizzy. “Its incredible” Mark crossed his arms and shot a smile back to his euphoric colleague. “Is it?”

“Yes!” Bob hurried over to his bag and started digging while Mark watched, amused at his usually collected friends joy. When Bob returned it was with a whole heap of ingredients and magic formulas clutched in his arms. “There’s a person trapped in there” Bob started while painting magic runes on the tree “he says that he’s been trapped ever since his party was assassinated.” This really sparked Marks interest and he crouched down by the other man. “What does he know?” 

“I don’t know every detail but he says that he’s positive that he saw the very same man that we are hunting!” Mark actually had to take a short break to breathe again after the news. “Are you sure?” Bob only nodded now, too engrossed in his own work to pay him any attention. 

A strange feeling bubbled up inside Mark when he got it confirmed. The man had been here, he had killed the sixth division and it was possible he would come after them too. The thought of having those sad blue eyes gazing at him again actually made the hardy hunter smile as he let himself go and fell back into the damp grass. He would save the man from the pain and fulfill his (self-written) destiny to kill him all in one swipe, and who knows. Maybe he would go down in the same fight. Dying with him.. maybe that wouldn’t be too bad.

————————————

Felix awoke with a start when excited voices reached his ears. One of them he didn’t know.. had they been attacked again? They had been completely knocked out and forgot all thoughts about guarding duty and such so he wouldn’t be surprised if that was it. The thing that spoke against his superstitions though was how happy they sounded. When he after some good thought propped himself up on his elbow and looked over to where the voices came from he stopped in stunned silence.

Over by one of the pines three people sat and talked eagerly, or, at least two of them did. Mark just seemed to be hanging in the background but Felix could see he was focused in the way he leaned forward, his eyes focused and analytical. After analyzing his dear friend thanos pewdiepie he moved his eyes to the newcomer, currently engaged in an intense discussion with Bob who, by the way, looked like he had just been slapped with a chicken several times. 

The new fellow was a night elf, that much was evident in his purple skin, green hair and, although he was turned away from him at the moment Felix knew that should he turn around he would sport silver eyes as bright as the moon that his kind worshipped so dearly. Felix eyes moved across the night elf, noticing a garb made of leather and leaves, a staff with horns from a stag, feathers and a blue stone, a pouch of herbs and most prominent, two giant pointed ears that strangely enough suited the race. The moment Felix was done with his analysis the druid suddenly seemed to sense his gaze, turned around and froze.

Felix wasn’t really surprised, although he according to him was the more handsome part of their group his eyes just somehow always seemed to get on the wrong side of people. Sighing he stood up and carefully sidestepped Wade to walk over to the other group.

“Having a party without your favourite bro around?” He grinned at their disappointed faces before turning to the druid. He then repeated all steps of how to not scare an animal in his head before crouching down and smiling. “Hey there bro” the druid only stared back, so he tried a different approach “Whats your name?”

This apparently the druid could reply to as he finally smiled back and said “Shalandras. Shalandras Moonvalley” he then stretched out his hand to greet and looked quite embarrassed when he said “sorry I didn’t answer before. Its just that I’ve been a tree so long and.. I-I’m not quite used to communicating by mouth.” Felix grinned back and took the other mans hand, giving it a hearty shake “no probs man. But. I think you owe me some explaining.”

“Right.” The druid shifted uneasily as he motioned for Felix to please sit down. “I feel a little uncomfortable having people staring down at me” he laughed awkwardly and scratched his neck before looking everyone into their eyes. “Now then. As I’ve told you I’m the last surviving member of the late sixth division” everyone nodded, that much was clear. “I had been standing right at the edge of this clearing when my unit was attacked. First something twisted Samuels mind, he killed Elisabeth.” The druids voice broke as he teared up. “When she was dead we had no more light. Then he came.” The word ‘he’ was coated in fear and for a moment the druid stilled and looked around, as if the very mentioning of him would summon the killer. Mark sure had hoped so.

“A-anyway. At first I only saw three green dots moving through the darkness followed by the sound of my friends hitting the ground. Then he.. no it, seemed to pause. I- I was so sure it had forgotten me. B-but then I-I looked up and..” the poor night elf almost broke in fear “he was there. He didn’t hurt me at first. Only saying things like asking why I was there and then.. then he freaked out. Just as I thought he was going to kill me the tree you saved me from accepted me and I was safe, but I quickly lost consciousness too. Had you not awoken me” he looked over at Mark gratefully “then I wouldn’t have been here.”

After the druid finished Felix stayed quiet for a moment as he pondered the pros and cons of the matter. Then at last he decided to speak “Ok. We saved you. A life is worth quite a lot so except information, what more do you bring to the table?” 

Had not Mark and Wayde known the ways of Felix then surely they would’ve been as baffled as the druid. The hero didn’t very often ask the damsel to pay up after all and the green haired man visibly grasped for words before shaking his head slowly. “I guess that’s fair enough. You may not know but my strengths lie not in fighting but rather..” He put a hand down on the dark grass and to everyones amazement a beautiful flowered bloomed. “I’m a..”

“Healer!!” Felix practically attacked Shalandras as he pushed him down on the ground and grinning widely said. “You’re a fucking saviour man” apparently Felix voice had stirred Edgar that now left Mayas side to clumsily but swiftly run over to them. He then immediately, to Felix horror and the others amusement, devoured the flower whole. “Edgar! You can’t eat that!” Felix went into full blown worried-mom mode and when everyone laughed at him everything seemed, just for a little while, so much easier.

—————————

Shalandras was a very skilled healer and made quick work of healing Wade whose first words, when he woke up on a bed of roses like a pretty princess, was “am I in heaven? And if so, what is Felix doing here?” Before Felix had time to re-hospitalize the wounded man Maya had jumped onto the burly mans chest, forcing a loud “oomph” out of him as he twitched in pain.

The druid, looking quite apologetic, had then explained that there was almost no life to ask for in this forest and when Mark had asked why he didn’t just create more he had let out an offended huff accompanied by the retort that “you can’t create life, only transfer it.” And then a lot of bullshit about how HE never would force life out of something in contrast to the filthy dark magician scum warlocks that always- and so on and on and on.

————————— 

When the party at last was ready to leave their not so safe haven they had reached a conclusion that to Mark sounded completely absurd.

“Yes. For the fourth goddamn time Mark. We. Are. Leaving.” Felix pushed one of his fingers right into Marks chest as the other mans eyes grew darker and darker with held back rage. “Wow. Your eyes look like thunderclouds” Felix laughed falsely and locked his gaze with Marks. “Don’t do anything stupid. Forget about fighting, Wade can barely stand, hell he can’t even walk without help!” 

“Hey!” Felix ignored Wades protest in favour of showering the opposer in even more sass “Say something Mark. Or did that monster look so sexy that you just HAVE to find it huh?” He smirked as he leaned in to the dangerously still Mark and whispered “well, I guess there’s no accounting for taste huh?” 

“And what the hell do you know?!” Mark finally snapped, aiming a straight punch at the smug man that easily dodged in the sassiest way possible. “You fell in love with someone the first fucking time you met! Can’t you ever stop gushing about that stupid woman? Do you seriously believe that just because she gave you some dogs she will stay faithful to you? You’re a fucking CRIMINAL. Give up on that stupid lie and..” Before Mark knew it he was on the ground, only now hearing the shouts begging him to stop, that it was enough already.

On too of him was Felix, his usual cold or bright eyes now clouded with rage. The man didn’t say anything but right in that moment a drop of water hit his face as the sky opened up and when he looked his fellow hunter in the eye he saw just how much he had hit the mark. Felix was no idiot. Very possibly he was the one most aware of the facts Mark had just so insensitively thrown at him. 

Mark knew all this. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to feel any empathy. It seemed Felix realized this too as he raised his fist into the air. But just as he was about to bring it down he wobbled and fell to the side, body shaking from fatigue. He had been too nice, always was and always will be, Mark thought solemnly too himself as he stood up and looked over at the others. He was only met with distant stares that shone mixed anger, confusion, sorrow and tiredness. 

Without a word Mark turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! I tried real hard on this one to make my writing more exciting and I dont knowifImaybefailedbut.. *voice fades out* please look forward to the next chapter! Its gonna be EPIC
> 
> Du kommer bli pestsmittad = you’re going to get affected with the plague.


	7. The Forest Heart- finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark continues alone, but what awaits him in the dark forests?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I’m really nervous of posting this chapter since.. well, I guess you’ll see.. anyway, I really hope that you’ll enjoy the way this is turning out (^-^)

When Mark walked away from his party there was only darkness, around them as well as in their hearts. All watching the other hunter walk away knew that this would probably be the last time they saw each other in life. By now they were all aware that the forest was consuming their life little by little and would Mark go inside without Felix’s tracking skills to bring him back he would never make it out by himself.

Mark had of course considered all this but when things had developed like this his pride and close to obsession of the rogue prevented him from taking his words back. Besides, why should he? He was planning on dying in here anyway. Suddenly a row of images of him laughing together with his friends or almost strangling them when they suddenly swapped cards right as he was about to win a game of uno passed by unbidden. Somehow those memories hurt so much and they made him recall how he had treated Felix. A wall of some strange mental sort prevented any large feelings but Mark turned around anyway. He could at least tell the other man a small sorry.

But everyone was gone. The forest had closed behind him and even when he searched he couldn’t see any sign of the creek. In a matter of minutes the forest had pushed him away from his group and with that all hopes of returning. Mark, never one to linger in the past, quickly decided that it probably would be bette to move. But to where? The tall pines and fir-trees looked the same in every direction he turned and just for a second fatigue overcame him and he thought that, this is hopeless. 

It was in that moment of weakness that something poked his head. When he looked up he at first saw only a dead fir tree. Its branches were sticking out in every direction but because no needles covered the thin branches anymore it looked like a ghost. On one of those thin skeletal arms, close to Marks left ear, a large rather fluffy looking owl was sat, strangely without even bending the brittle branch. The sight was so sudden and so odd that Mark didn’t, couldn’t, do anything but stare. 

The owl apparently appreciated the attention and when it shook itself and tilted its head in that way only owls could do Mark noticed something strange about it. A dim light, not unlike the moon, shone from beneath the owls feathers when it moved and on its forehead a laying half moon in the same colour as the owl was placed. 

For the first time since they entered the forest Mark was truly at a loss as to what to do. His confusion didn’t ease up when the owl stopped staring at him and instead ruffled through it feathers. When the animal broke eye contact it was like a spell was lifted and Mark shook himself uneasily when he realized that he had mimicked it in tilting his head. 

After some ruffling the owl found what it was looking for and let it go in the palm of Marks hand. It was two items. One leather wristband adorned with a round, grey, plain looking stone as well as some minor carved inscriptions and beside it a beat up looking rolled parchment.

The owl kept watching over him as he broke the seal and opened the parchment. Strangely enough the animals gaze didn’t unnerve him. Instead it felt rather comforting, almost like it kept watch over him. Despite the dark surroundings he felt safe when he started reading.

The letter was rather hastily written and started with an explanation. It had been Shalandras who sent the owl and in the first part of the letter he explained how they had seen him disappear into the forest but just as they were about to walk away everything had suddenly moved violently. Worried about him they had tried to check but only found tall trees. When it came to the owl matter it was his spirit companion from old that he had been able to call upon when he was freed. It wouldn’t accompany him any further than this but in his letter Shalandras begged Mark to put on the wristband since it as he explained it “could be very useful”.

The latter part of the letter was focused on how Mark would survive while still finding what he sought. “When I was part of that tree I was attuned to all of the Forest heart” the druid began “and though I was unconscious at the time the things I discovered are still clear in my head, although I doubt for how long. I feel it important to warn you that the new lord of this forest likes to play tricks with your mind and should you while reading this letter regret your decision my owl will lead you back to us.” 

Mark frowned, so a means of escape huh. He looked over at the owl that blinked back before reading on. “As I mentioned I’ve been one with the forest for several days and that has left me with some information regarding the one you seek and the one we tried to find. You see, the trees in Silverpine have been dying for a long time, but it is in most cases caused by the same plague that curses the ones that reside in these forests, and its effect on us is close to none existent. I’ve spent many days studying these pines and can only come to one conclusion now. These woods of Forest Heart are haunted. And not haunted in that original sense but rather cursed by the shade of a creature of old that seeks to regain its power. I can’t understand how it hopes to do so but I’m sure that strange undead you hunt has an important role to play. The creature reside in the heart of this forest and spreads his power through the water, contaminating all plantlife as well as everyone drinking it. I believe that you’ve seen the effects of that yourself.” So that was why. Mark sank down against the dead pine and read the final part.

“To find the heart you need to follow the streams of life that run through here. You may think this is a crazy suggestion since everything here is dead, but life still flows in this forest. Its just that here, it only flows in one direction.”

But I can’t see life. Mark stared at the cryptic final words but soon figured that he would need to give some answer to the others before trying to figure anything out. He pulled out the pen that he always kept with him just in case and scribbled down a quick “don’t interfere” before handing back the parchment to the owl. Upon receiving the paper the owl shook itself quickly and almost seemed to give Mark a small nod. It then hooted a small hoot of confirmation, spread its wings and disappeared up into the sky.

Mark watched as the strange animal faded into a small shining dot against the ever black sky of the Forest heart, a strange feeling in his heart. When it had disappeared from sight he shook himself in an attempt to clear his head and, without really any direction in mind, walked deeper into the darkness.

——————————

He had walked through a forest that only seemed to grow denser and denser for at least an hour when he noticed something strange. A small green light followed by several more shimmered across the ground in short intervals. Intrigued he walked closer to them and soon found that they were flowing in what resembled a small stream. They were moving in a path that crossed his and while he knew that this very well could be the “life streams” that he was searching for something nagged at his mind to follow the lights in the opposite direction. Always one to trust his instincts Mark didn’t pay the source of that instinct much mind and soon he was trudging toward what he thought was the source of the lights, strangely enough never noticing the way the forest grew darker around him.

——————————

Behind some black leaved bushes and pointed rocks there was a rather large area where the forest cleared out. No vegetation grew on the rough ground that was covered with rime, shooting long rigid spears into the air. The trees here were thin but tall and there were none of the bushy fir-trees. The ones that stretched toward the sky formed a thick roof with their canopies but despite this thin beams of bleak light shone through, bathing the frostbitten place in a spooky glow. This area was different from the other parts of the forest for obvious reasons but they became all the more apparent when Mark warily entered it and was greeted by a blast of cold air.

The drop in temperature was drastic and would make most people turn around or drop from the shock. If this had been intended to kill or fend off intruders the one that had created it hadn’t counted on Marks endurance.

The hunter pulled his jacket a little tighter and stepped into the rime, sharp cracks breaking the complete silence as the cold spears shattered beneath him. He had seen, or maybe sensed, something further in and he intended to find out what. 

When he after a long walk he had made his way to the centre of the place his hands were numb from the cold that only seemed to drop lower and lower. It had started to become hard to move his arms and legs and a familiar pain in his forehead made it hard to think clearly. He had to keep moving, and soon, years of playing and hunting in the snow had taught him that the harsh way. Despite this he spared himself some time and looked up, breath coming out in small puffs as he watched. 

Right above him, tied with thick ropes to a roughly crafted cross of logs a single corpse was fastened. It was the remains of a man. He sported what looked like farmer clothes but they were not much more than rags, befitting, Mark thought, for a man that looked like no more than a rag himself with his eyes hollowed out and body so thin that the skin looked more like brittle paper than anything else.

Mark recognized him from a hunt some years ago. This man had at the time recently become one of the undead after his house had been attacked an evening in late fall. Together with his family and several more of his kind he had ravaged multiple of the scarce farms and the fifth division had been dispatched as substitutes for the seventh that had all gone down with the flu. They had ultimately succeeded in vanquishing their prey but this one had escaped into the Forest Heart.

“So this is where you ended up huh.” Mark murmured as he placed his still warm hand on one of the lifeless ones frost covered legs. He actually felt bad for the man but couldn’t mourn for long before a green light flashed across the ground again. But this time he could backtrack it.

Mark sensed their presence long before he saw them but couldn’t quite fathom the scale before the truth of the source of the green light pulses were presented before his own eyes. His eyes widened when he saw the tenths, no hundreds, of corpses hanging from the canopy. Many were still, just like the one before him, but some of them still moved and it was from those that the lights emerged.

The cruelty of the scene shook Mark and just for a moment it wiped away his hatred as he saw the hanging humans as just that, humans. Tortured souls whose only sin in life was being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The moment passed by rather quickly though when a sound from the forest behind him pulled the hunter out from the trance. 

Something was walking through the forest and as the lights from the canopy above dimmed Mark tensed. The presence that he sensed was enormous to the extent that he couldn’t quite grasp it. The only thing he knew was that all his senses were screaming and that he had walked into a trap, probably set just for him.

The minutes after that Mark would only recall as a blur when a giant form resembling a four armed monster on two legs and lacking a face had lumbered out of the forest right as Mark disappeared into the other half. 

His salvation had been when, only moments before the giant had been about to exit the forest, his wristband had lighted up and suddenly green threads of light started to appear on the ground where the pulses of life earlier only had been seen as brief flashes.

He had forced his frostbitten body to move then and despite how he felt that it was much too slow had run along the threads and disappeared into the relative safe of the darkness, right as a guttural scream echoed through the dead area behind him. The scream unnerved him to no end and although he kept telling himself to stop running and get a hold of himself he kept leaping across the forest floor, dodging and turning with speed and nimbleness he never would have though he’d be able to muster. The pulsing threads of light were constantly beside him, on the floor, in the air, climbing up trees and encircling vegetation they matched his heartbeat as they all pumped their energy in one direction. 

As the rime slowly let go off his strained body he felt exhilarated close to euphoric and the feeling didn’t leave as he continued to run and more and more threads started to appear until the ground was barely visible beneath the stream of lights, all pulsating toward one common goal. Mark allowed himself to smile when he saw the development and while the trees finally started to part he whispered the words to himself as his heart beat sped up and a slender blue eyed man appeared before his minds eye, this time he was no doubt closing in on “..The Heart”.

——————————

The forest spit the man out unwillingly and roughly. Like a ragdoll he tumbled down a small slope covered with lush dark green grass before finally stopping. He then lay there for a few moments as his body heaved from the panicked running. 

When Mark sat up everything was spinning and he hit his head to try and make it stop. When his sight finally became somewhat steady he looked around.

The space he had been thrown into was a large, close to giant, perfectly circular clearing. The ground he was laying on as well as all ground in the place was slightly tilted toward a clearwater pond in the centre. All grass covering the clearing was a lush dark green with small water droplets resting on the straws. The sky above was clear and sprinkled with trillions of stars, all beautiful in their own right but also greatly outshined by the moon that stood in high zenith, shimmering like a pearl placed in a silver crown. 

When Mark stood up his senses slowly started working again as the sounds and smells of the clearing appeared one after another. The air smelled clear like that after a long summer rain, a slight breeze caressed his skin and moved his dark hair as the sound of small waves lapping against the ponds edges calmly joined in the chorus of night sounds and sensations that made up the area. You could even hear owls hooting and crickets singing in the outskirts, a sound that was unfamiliar in every part of Silverpine, but nonexistent in the forest heart. 

The clearing was as every forest was supposed to be and for a second Mark let his thoughts wander to the lush forests of Mount Hyjal or the ever green giant trees of Feralas and Winterspring. He was so caught up in the beauty that he completely ignored the facts that Hyjal had burned down, Feralas was plagued with nightmarish residents and that Winterspring was home to ghosts. Following this mindset the thought that this place would be the nest of darkness soon seemed too absurd.

The green lights had disappeared now but somehow Mark could feel them pulsating through the ground beneath him. A great sense of calm embraced him and as his heartbeats slowed he could feel how his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. The druid had obviously been full of bullshit. This place was paradise and he just needed to rest for a bit.. 

Suddenly a sharp pain coursed through his head when something hard hit it from behind. It successfully removed all signs of relaxation from him as his senses once again, at least for the moment, cleared and sharpened. He looked around but there was no one there. Beside him though, on the ground close to his right foot, a small rock laid.

When he bent down to pick it up something caught his eye and he left the stone alone in favour of straightening. He had never noticed when he tumbled in but the clearing was actually covered in strange patterns. They were made up of grey stones in varying sizes, everything from small pebbles to rocks as large as footballs. All were covered in lush moss and when Mark bent down to touch some of the green fell away and a single carving was revealed. 

He didn’t recognize the carving but as he scratched away more and more moss he slowly came to realize that every single stone in here, from rock to pebble, had an unique series of letters carved into them, and one more thing. Every single stone that he touched his wristband reacted to and he could feel a slight pulse in all of them, in some of the smaller ones even the carvings were filled with the same green light that he had seen so much of earlier. 

After some time he found a small rock with only two symbols on that was so filled with green fluid that when he tilted it the fluid leaked out and fell on his hand. The effect was immediate when a whirlwind of energy flowed through him, healing all his wounds and wiping his mind clean from the last traces of lingering dizziness. It did however have some side effects and Mark had no time to react before the whole formation of rocks shuddered and moved around him, instantly filling the hole he had caused. Then the stone he had picked up started vibrating faster and faster before finally exploding, raining green fluid all over his face. 

When he had gathered himself and started to wipe away the fluid something hit him. Hard. It was like receiving a sledgehammer to the head at full force and he had no say in the matter when he fell down on his knees and groaned in pain as another one hit him. 

Something was trying to invade him and he could feel thousands of voices whispering on the edges of his mind, successfully tearing down one barrier after another. No matter how hard he fought he couldn’t resist it and just as his final wall was torn down he cursed, how could he have fallen for such an obvious trap?

Then. Void.

———————————

When the man fell down the clearing suddenly fell quiet as well. There was no use keeping up illusions anymore after all, now it only had to wait.

And wait it did. The moon had long since passed zenith when a shudder went through the dark haired man and he raised, slowly, animatedly. A shadow watched the scene from behind the tree line, scared to walk too close but yet too worried to leave. It wanted to tell him that he needed to run, that nothing of what it saw was real. But it also knew all too well the power of its master and that Mark, no matter how strong willed, never would be able to save himself.

——————————

Just like the watcher had thought Mark no longer saw what was before him, maybe he could, but the ghosts in his mind painted scenes in his vision that shielded him from what was truly there and tricked his mind to know no other reality. It was a dream. But to Mark.., in no means a sweet one.

He was back in the forest, rain falling on his head and wounded puppy cradled in his arms. He was just about to stab himself but to his horror the knife never hit his leg. Instead it found its way into the small dogs fur and with a sickening crack made its way through its head. Now he screamed but his voice never made it out as the words turned around and seemed to suffocate him instead. Slowly the puppy moved and with dead eyes it looked at him with the eyes that Chica had the very same day that they had left her when she couldn’t choose between them and their mother.

A long series of pictures and clips of the people he had killed flashed before his eyes but they didn’t hurt him until he saw the others, crying and sobbing over their dead friends and family. He saw his mother in her last moments of life and also his father when he was attacked by undead. He saw a slender man sleeping beside his wife and he saw a photography of him and several others, but their faces were gone. Blood dripped across the photo and he fell.

When he landed he was back with the puppy but this time he hadn’t found it yet. He saw the ring of corpses again and also the peculiar inner circle of the eye. He recalled the names of the animals and suddenly the letters seemed to move themselves in front of his eyes. Twisting and swirling until two words appeared before him. 

Hare  
Mice  
Long eared owl  
Eagles  
Pheasant

Help me.

Suddenly everything shuddered and before he could grasp the words he fell again, but now he landed on his knees. He stood up shakily and looked around, his inner voices were screaming but when he saw the clearing again and turned to look at the pond they all went out. There was something laying in the centre of the still water. Something fighting for its life and loosing. Mark recalled an afternoon long ago when he, Thomas and Chica had gone down to the lake to play. Chica had fallen into the water from a rock and was about to drown when Mark had jumped in and saved her. This was clearly the same scenario and as the golden dog fighting for her life became all the more apparent in his mind Mark hurried toward the water, never noticing the shifts around him when dark winds started to blow and the water grew restless as it turned pitch black.

He was right at the edge when he stopped, suddenly unsure if this was right. He had started to notice the winds and the darkness.. they were scaring him. He felt lonely and scared and only wanted to be anywhere but here. He wanted to see Chica, and Thomas, and his mother and father.. The water twisted angrily now, constantly changing shapes as the winds blew more eagerly, pushing him towards it. He wanted to die.

Right at that moment the water appeared to still, and Chica was there again. He took one step toward her. His parents appeared, they looked so happy.. Then another. He saw Thomas too. He was knees deep in the water and so close.. when suddenly two hands grabbed him and he was pulled away from the gaping black hole that was the true face of the pond.

—————————

As Mark tumbled backwards something pressed up against him. He felt trapped by the arms and even when the illusion shattered before him his thoughts were jumbled and deranged. Despite the illusion everything he had felt was real and when the one that had pulled him out let go he found something to relieve all that stress on.

As soon as the other let their arms release him he spun around and grabbed the other person by the wrists, rolling some before successfully pushing the other down on the ground. 

In his rage Mark cared little for the identity of his victim but he had time to recognize two scared blue eyes looking at him from an otherwise completely covered face before he leaned down and placed an arm over the mans throat, reached back, and drew a hunters knife.

Now the man beneath him looked truly scared and seemed to try and speak, but Marks arm prevented it and just as he brought the knife down upon him panic filled the blue eyes that clouded for a brief moment. A flash of green passed through them and suddenly the rogue was on top of Mark instead.

“Mar-“ the rogue didn’t stay on top long before he was roughly pushed away and now he faced an enraged Mark. This had not been the plan. He wasn't sure what it had been from the very beginning but, this wasn’t it. The rogue realized quickly that this wasn’t a fight that he could take and slowly he started to back off.

The brown eyed hunter followed his movements every single step, watching for the slightest sign of an opening, and had not the ground been so slippery or that large rock been right there maybe it wouldn’t have ended like it would. But fate was not so kind to the rogue this time and while he was all too keen on keeping eye contact with Mark he never noticed the conveniently placed muddy patch and yelped as he slipped. His head hit the rock with a sickening thud and then, silence. 

Mark stayed in the pouring rain for a long time after that. The cold had slowly started to wash away his rage and after a while he began to wonder what he really was doing there, why he didn’t go to check if the other man was dead and why he didn’t leave now that his job was finished.

He had no answers. But in some distant place of his heart something had stirred when he had touched the other man. He had not been able to grasp the memory then and the fear of losing it again threatened to grow to gargantuan proportions the longer he stayed there. 

And so the dark haired hunter decided to turn around, but he had no time to walk more than a couple of steps before a glistening blade was pressed against his throat. A cold arm sneaked its way across his chest and pulled him closer to the man behind him. He opened his mouth but was quickly shut up as the dagger drew blood. Something leaned in close to him and whispered in a voice far from humanoid “now now, this boy has been waiting so long for this.” In a matter of seconds the thing had removed itself from him and now they instead stood face to face. The rogue had removed his mask now and revealed a pale cheek twisted by a sickening grin. Two green eyes blazed from beneath the hood and twirling one of its daggers it said “Let’s play”.

——————————

Mark couldn’t remember how the one he had fought earlier had acted and because of that it was an easy task to throw away any sense of kindness or grace toward his enemy. So instead of trying to stop this he drew his polearm and without wasting a beat sprung forward toward the bleak man, that giggled.

“In a hurry aren’t we?” The thing dodged easily and aimed a quick stab at Marks exposed neck. Right before it connected though he used his polearms momentum to duck under the swipe and instead spun on the ground and aimed for the rogues legs. Exhilaration was apparent in the others eyes and to his own dismay Mark knew his eyes looked the very same way when the rogue once again avoided his attack and instead used the nearing weapon to jump up into the air. 

He had tried to shackle his bloodlust but now wave after wave of adrenalin threatened to destroy that balance. His battle senses were roaring and he could feel how a crazed grin painted his lips when he discarded his polearm in favour of a longbow. The rogue was a way too easy target in the air and Mark fired two arrows in rapid succession before equipping his polearm again. 

The arrows hit target flawlessly. But when the still body hit the ground he didn’t approach it. Instead he without even looking around swung back his polearm and parried a dagger right as it was about to hit him. Manic giggling echoed through the clearing as the rogue disappeared from behind him only to reappear too close for his large weapon to reach. It then grabbed the shaft of the silver coated armament and leaned in closer. Blood ruptured from its hands but it didn’t seem to mind as it leered at him and said “say, I knew you would be fun”.

The words had an expectant edge to them but when the rogue only received a silent glare it sighed and fell backwards. “Think about it alright?” When it hit the ground it dissolved into dark smoke and was gone for a few seconds before reappearing on his shoulders. Cold fingers ruffled his hair absentmindedly. “I can feel him you know”. Mark growled and threw the irritating insect into the ground. He then drew his shortsword and spun it around once before stabbing the other straight in the heart. “He’s screaming” 

The shadowed figure sank into the ground. “It’s a pity, really.” Mark couldn’t understand what the thing was saying. He? The only thing he could hear was this bastard, and it was pissing him off. Mark growled and let out a scream of frustration at the evasiveness of his prey. This had to end, now. Before he went berserk again. 

He knew only one way to combat darkness, and that was light. Careful not to attract attention he gently touched the wristband and closed his eyes. The moon was here, and no matter how much he detested it he knew that it was his only possible way to truly hurt the attacker. 

The problem though was that, he didn’t know how to use it. At all. But still, something told him that “this is right” when he started praying. The rogue seemed to notice this as it suddenly stopped popping around and Mark could practically feel its eyes widening in horror as it threw itself at him screaming something in an unknown tongue.

But the rogue had been way too late. When harsh moonlight started to bathe the clearing the bleak mans screams changed character as he fell down and writhed in pain. Large wounds were appearing on his exposed hands and cheek and when he finally managed to stand up again his eyes had turned black. “You-you-you’re destroy-y-ying him Mark.” The rogue took one shaky step toward him. His voice sounded like a hung up cassette player now and Mark backed away from the horror warily. What did he mean?

“Who?” The rogue only grinned and looked rather unsteady when he picked up one of the rocks from the ground and threw it absentmindedly into the air. “You-you-you te-tell me-e-e” then the rock exploded in a shower of green and he barely had time to fling himself backwards before a large shadow cut through the fluid. 

He had managed to save himself for the moment but the situation he was in was bad in so many ways. First of all his polearm had been thrown just out of reach and second he was on the ground with an enormous shadow closing in.

The rogue was wrapped in shadows now and as it neared him new strings of darkness were constantly added to the thing in the middle that for the first time looked slightly human to Mark. The slender man was floating in the mass of darkness, held up by ropes of void, and was constantly sinking deeper into the goo. His eyes were black and unseeing as they stared emptily at the ground, his head hanging down, motionless. 

His hood had been pulled back now and Mark could distinguish brown hair shaped into a widows peak and bleak skin perfectly contrasting pink lips. Something about him felt so familiar. For a moment fright threatened to overtake him when something pressed against his mind and despite better judgement he realized that he couldn’t let this man drown. Words formed on his lips on their own and he screamed.

“Jack!”

Suddenly blue filled his sight and Mark was floored by what felt like lightning when two clear blue eyes opened. They met his for just a moment before flickering over to what was happening around them. A slight gasp escaped the mans lips and his eyes drowned in fear as he tried desperately to escape his prison. 

The dark would have none of that and it was obvious that mans efforts would all go to waste if Mark wouldn’t do anything. The darkness seemed distracted enough by trying to re-enslave its host but as Mark carefully reached for his polearm it became apparent that was not the case as a string of darkness shot it out of his palm with so much force that Mark believed both his hand and the weapon lost.

His hand wouldn’t move when he tried and the same went for his lower arm. Without his polearm his defence and attack power was severely lowered. He should give up and try to escape while he could, but his pride and the desperation in the other mans eyes held him in shackles. There was only one thing left fir him to do and Mark cursed to himself as he drew one of his shortswords and stood up. “Let go”

The darkness squirmed in delight but didn’t stop its consumption. “What makes you think I would?” Suddenly the goo started to move and soon a big red eye stained with purple gazed down at him. “He’s mine”.

A wicked smile painted Marks lips as he pointed one of his weapons at the eye. It turned into a grin as the shadow laughed and finally absorbed the squirming rogue. It left only his hand for Marks eyes to focus on and he watched silently as it twitched when enormous waves of pain seemed to course through the man. As his hand at last went lax and got absorbed too Mark moved his gaze back to the eye, careful to conceal his rage. 

The eye grinned at him one last time before closing. Then multiple tremors ran through the mass of darkness that shrunk. In the next seconds it changed shapes constantly before settling on one, humanoid, shape. “Since you can’t seem to remember I guess I’ll humour your senses a little bit”. The tortured face of the blue eyed man smiled back at him and Mark gripped his weapons tighter, almost drawing blood. He had no choice, the pale man was completely gone. Inky darkness covered large parts of his body like deformed armour and when one of his eyes opened it was not the blue of the man but the red eye that grinned at him.

With no options left he breathed out slowly and closed his eyes. When he sensed the shadow starting to worry he lightly tapped his blades and didn’t show how much he enjoyed it when the thing attacked. As soon as it came close enough Mark opened his eyes, cast a quick glance at his now shimmering blades and dodged straight under the monsters attack. He then swiftly brought his sword into the exposed belly of it and then, before it had time to do anything, spun around and brought his other blade against its throat.

Now behind it he enjoyed the pain and confusion it seemed to feel as it could no loner dissolve. “Not so fun anymore, eh?” He grinned and removed the shortsword not against its throat rather roughly before kicking it down on the ground and pinning it with a weapon through each of its arms.

When looking at his piece he suddenly got an urge to inspect it closer and crouched down across its chest. The monster was vibrating with anger and at the moment there was nothing else in the world that Mark wanted to see more. Slowly he put his unhurt hand by the things head and leaned in closer. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are and yet I feel like I should” for a brief second something shifted in the eyes of the monster underneath him and Mark, without knowing why, relaxed. “Let’s finish this” 

As the dark eyed man removed one of his swords and raised it a memory of a similar situation flashed through his mind and just for a moment he hesitated. He couldn’t grasp it through the thick walls of his mind but the mere existence of the memory sent a longing through his body and stopped his hand for almost no time at all. 

Yet it was too long and when his sword hit it found only empty ground. He had no time to defend himself from the cut and writhed as inhuman waves of agony coursed through his body. He looked to his arm and saw a long cut running up it. The wound was shallow but despite that it quickly invaded his body. Bringing intense pain and numbness as it went.

Luckily the cut had found the already hurt arm and Mark could feel everything around him blurring then sharpening rapidly as his survival instincts made his heart beat faster and lungs pump harder. There was no way he could repress it and when he slowly started to move his vision turned red as he saw the wounded form still trying to rip his shortsword out from its arm.

The poor man had no time to react before something heavy knocked him to the ground roughly. He didn’t know what was happening, the sword hurt and he was so scared when he lay on his back, pinned to the ground by a large muscular form.

Mark didn’t realize the discrepancy and was fully consumed by his want to finish the life of this irritating creature before it came up with another way to hurt him, or anyone else for that matter. Because of this resolution he didn’t immediately notice how the man he held down shook or how all the darkness was gone again. 

Once he did realize though it hit him hard and all of a sudden his vision was filled with way too many sensations. His skin felt hot against the other mans cold and his mind was going completely haywire when his gaze moved from the others chest to his throat, lingered on the lips and lastly met the eyes. 

This was really bad. Despite his heart speeding up and all flee or fight instincts blaring into his ears Mark couldn’t bring himself to not touch the other man. Something was pounding at his mind and he could feel heat making its way up his neck all the way to his cheeks. He had seen this before, but despite him having called out the mans name earlier he could neither remember it or anything else about the strange man. 

He just knew that he wanted to, needed to, touch him and have him close. “Who.. are you?” The words felt strange on his tongue, like he shouldn’t need to ask this. The feeling only grew larger as when the other heard them his eyes visibly darkened and he shrugged. “None important” That obviously was bullshit but Mark had no time to ask as the darkness in the mans eyes grew. The other didn’t seem to have noticed it yet but before Mark had time to warn him he was pulled back by something.

A root followed by many more grabbed his arms and legs, they were climbing up his waist and encircling his throat. No matter how much he wanted to fight it or scream he could do no more than watch as black tentacles shot from the pond as well as from inside of the blue eyed man. The darkness didn’t claim him quickly and it seemed to want Mark to see how it slowly tormented him into submission. 

The last thing Mark saw before his vision turned dark was how the man lay on the ground, sobbing while dark tendrils wrapped around and inside his body as the darkness reclaimed what was “rightfully theirs”.

——————————

“Oh my god Mark” A high pitched voice stirred him from his slumber.

The first sensations was those of the scent of fire, the low hum of voices around and further away from him as well as the feeling of a number of bodies surrounding him. The warmth of actual living bodies. He had never before realized how much he loved being warm and as he curled into a small ball, already fading into nothingness again, the loud voice made another try.

“Oh. My. God. Mark.” A strong hand roughly grabbed hold of his nose and he was actually slapped a couple of times before finally opening his eyes, only to instantly jerk his head backwards. His whole vision was filled with Felix, and it was not what he had wanted to see first ting he woke up. Not that he had ever thought that he would wake up again.

Suddenly memories from that night flooded him and for a few second he had a hard time breathing. The first question that came to mind was “How?”

It was first now that Mark noticed the others sitting around him and while only his closest friends, Wade, Bob and Felix, were really close Shalandras had come closer too when he saw that Mark had woken up. He was now leaning over Felix shoulder and it looked like he was about to answer, something intelligent I bet, Mark thought to himself as he grieved the way the conversation turned out when Felix invaded it and said “Shalandras knows some dope shit and he saved your ass.” 

Everyone turned to look at the offending blonde man for a moment before turning back to the druid who cleared his throat. “In other words I sent you my strongest artifact, the bracelet of the moon, to help you. It lets you call upon mother moons powers despite not being attuned and grants abilities such as being able to see the flow of life, blessing weapons and..” everyone around him broke into grinns when the druid rolled out a familiar parchment “.. tracking and forcefully taking people that have signed it.” 

Mark paled as his scribbled words telling them to not interfere appeared before him. “But I didn’t sign? I.. “ he had no time to finish before Bob butted in “you actually don’t have to. As soon as the contractor writes something on the paper with intent its done.” 

“We just knew you would try to keep us out of it so we took some... necessary precautions, I guess you could say” Wade smiled gently as he placed a hand on Marks shoulder. “We were worried about you, buddy”

“Buddies? We’re not buddies! You're more like kidnappers. Enemies of freedom!” Mark let his voice reach high places in pretend anger and at first everyone looked a little surprised. But that surprise quickly faded into comedy as everyone burst out laughing, even the courier that just entered the room carrying a brick of steaming hot tea smiled. Felix caught the poor man immediately and almost made him spill his tea as he poked him and said “one mystery aside, what’s your name even?” 

Everyone went silent and stared at the pale man that probably had been scarred enough already without having five intense pairs of eyes staring at him. “S-sam” the man in question then quickly left the tea on the nearby table and attempted to make a run for it. But he didn’t make it very far before multiple hands grabbed and pulled him into the merry bunch that started playing drinking games with the goal to try and see who would get floored first from the tea. Wade challenged everyone else to a game of uno and received loud shouts back as Felix said that he was the reigning master and that Wade was a fool to think that he could beat him and Bob. Bob protested at this assumption that they would be paired up since Felix uno skills were “severely lacking” and that he “always messed up the colours”. 

Mark watched happily as the others argued, the newly named courier spilled hot tea on the druid and soon Wade was laying on the floor, a way too excited small golden puppy on his chest. This truly was home. He felt so intensely warm in that moment that he completely discarded the events from earlier. He could add that to his growing mystery box later. Besides, when he tried to think about what had happened that late night he couldn’t remember neither the face nor the voice of the other man that had been there. A thought popped up and he carefully removed the puppy from Wades chest and asked. “How long was I out for?”

“Oh.” Wade scratched his neck awkwardly “a week?”

Mark paled instantly. “What?” 

“Don’t worry about in man. We kept the house safe and our little friend over there most of all. “ he nodded toward the puppy that was sitting in front of him, tongue out and head slightly tilted “I swear she wouldn’t leave your side, she..” Mark interrupted him there. “Lets play. I think Bob really will kill Felix and Shalandras really can’t handle the pressure.” He nodded toward the druid that looked close to frantic as he eyed his cards with wide eyes, head soaked with camomile tea. Wade chuckled at that and stood up. “Guess I better save the day” Mark grinned back as he nudged the large man playfully “think you can?” 

Yeah. Nothing could change his reality. Not in a million years.

——————————

The games had been going on for the whole night and at some point people had started to nod off. Everyone was spread out on the floor, cards and game-pieces of various origins haphazardly thrown everywhere so that the area resembled a war zone more than anything else.

It was at this time, when the early morning light started to filter through the dusty windows and painted the living room in a golden glow that there was a small knock on the door. It resounded through the house several times before one of the figures stirred. 

Grumbling to himself Mark removed a couple of uno cards from his hair as well as took care of some Risk pieces that had been invading his neck all night before slowly attempting the difficult feat of standing up. 

The gaming night had taken longer than expected and as with everything that went that way it had gotten rowdier too. Sometime around three in the morning everyone had started to sneak alcohol into their cups and because of that ended up like this. Mark didn’t drink, and he cursed the fact since it made him have to deal with troublesome things like this.

Groggy and cursing he finally managed to balance himself and make it out the room and into the hallway with only minor damage. When he stopped there for a moment and looked back at his knocked out friends he couldn’t help but feel a large sense of gratitude for the way his life was right now.

Now, he just hoped that this person disturbing wouldn’t stay for too long and preferably would just go away right now. But since the person in question hadn’t moved for at least the half an hour that Mark faked his sleep he guessed that it would only be fair to listen to the fellow or fellowess. 

When Mark opened the door he was blinded by two things, first of all the “bright” light that really wasn’t that bright since the sun still was on the other side of the lodge. Then secondly the mere appearance of the man before him that made his heart do all kinds of weird flips and stunts without his consent.

Three words and all that he knew would come collapsing down upon him. And as Mark saw the destruction of all his reality stand on his doorstep it opened its mouth and in a slightly accented voice said. 

“H-hi, ‘m Jack”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks super nervous* I’ve been so excited to write this chapter and I really hope that me introducing Jack in this way will be okay with you guys. I’ve planned out basically the whole story so I’m pretty sure it’ll turn out alright, and I’m very excited to get the opportunity to write some more septiplier moments ^^ 
> 
> Oh, and rest assured, the mystery parts of this fic are by no means over! This is just the beginning... *crazed laugh*


	8. Cozy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark tries his best to avoid a catastrophe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news everyone~ Here’s a new chapter. (Th-that’s good news right? At least I hope so) This is meant to be kind of a feel good chapter, a Lunar Interlude (to all you Taz fans out there) if you may. Anyway, I barely slept last night so.. I might’ve written something crazy. I have actually proof read this, once, and I’m still not quite sure how to write Jacks dialect because it kind of feels like it isn’t heavy enough to go full blown Irish on him? Also I haven’t decided yet if I should call him Jack or Sean, so if you have any objections against me naming him ”Jack” please let me know ^^
> 
> I find this chapter pretty nice and maybe.. somewhat funny/cozy? I wanted to give a bit more insight in their ordinary lives before kicking of the next arc. Also, I’m writing WAY WAY WAY too much so goodnight

The person that claimed to be this “Jack” and that had so rudely invaded his doorstep had brown hair that partly covered his eyes. His skin was pale and decorated with pink lips surrounded by a little bit of neatly cut beard, slightly darker than his other hair. Eyes as blue as the summer sky were placed beneath perfectly bushy brows and when the man smiled.. oh god.. Mark lost feeling in his legs as he let his eyes explore the mans body even more. 

His body was slender and the skin that wasn’t covered was pale. He wore a simple black tank top that, Mark thought, showed just a bit too much of his perfect neck and collarbones that looked so kissable... No. He quickly threw the thoughts out the window. Moving on! 

The morning was chilly so the man naturally wore a jacket. This one was a nice warm brown colour and despite the rather sharp cold he had it open, revealing a simple belt threaded through a pair of slightly beat up pants. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing thin but yet pretty well built arms that ended in large but slender hands that in that moment were busy fidgeting with his bracelet. The strap holding a big bag was slung over one of the guys shoulders, the bag itself resting on his opposite hip. It was a simple leather bag but Mark noticed one odd thing about it and that was the red cross that was neatly sewn on to its side.

And speaking of odd things. There were quite a few things that Mark found strange about the person in front of him. First and foremost his strange attraction to the guy, but aside from that was the fact that both his arms and hands were wrapped in bandage that if he looked closely enough seemed to not be limited to the arms but rather enveloped large parts of his body. Had he been hurt? The concept of being hurt and almost dying a death of bleeding was not so unfamiliar here but to wrap yourself in bandages like that and still be walking around? That was strange.

Other small details Mark noticed were the thick leather wrist guards that encircled both his wrists, the small necklace with a silver four leafed clover on it that resounded with him in some strange way and also the way the man seemed to be very nervous, an unsure smile playing on his lips at all times.

When he at last had finished his examination Mark quickly came to a conclusion and straightened before capturing Jacks gaze. 

“I don’t know you”

For a moment something broke in the other mans eyes. It was like throwing a stone through a glass window and then watching the shards fall down. The former light blue slowly darkened and he averted his gaze. But only for a moment. Because right as Mark was about to shut the door something shifted in the blue eyed man and he said “you’re hurt, aren’t you?”

Mark frowned. It was so funny how his r’s resounded in that way... He cleared his throat. Begone wicked thoughts, begone. And anyway, how did he know? The only ones who knew of his condition were his friends and they would sooner die than betray him for some easy gossip. Well, maybe not Felix, but it was still unlikely. Immediately switching to defensive mode he said “Its only a scratch” Yet unconsciously his movements spoke against him when his hand moved to carefully caress the shallow wound. It felt strange, cold almost. 

For a moment Mark zoned out but was rudely pulled out of it when he felt cold fingertips trace the edge of the wound. At first he only blinked at the slender man that suddenly was much much closer than expected. Then all sensations started to rupture through him and quickly he found himself being way too focused on the tingling that the fingers sent through his body, how the calm breath of the other stroked his neck and how Jacks body almost pressed up against him.

“You’ve bin feeling cold lately right?” Marks hand twitched “Get off”. He tried to, strangely very gently, push the other man away so he would let go but he wouldn’t move from him. Instead Jack looked up into the only slightly taller mans eyes and said “why haven’t you visited a doctor?”

Mark snorted. “A doctor? Here? Does this look like a place where the capital would send their beloved medics? We’ve got a druid, that’s quite enough” Jack seemed rather content with that answer as he clearly had a hard time hiding a little smile. “Well.. I’m here.” 

He only received a stare back, and Mark was just about to close the door on him again when he was, to his annoyance, yet again stopped by a pale hand. “I-I know it might be hard ta trust me but please, if you don’t receive treatment soon that poison will kill you.” 

Dark brown met light blue for a moment when Mark stayed, and a small light was lit in the lighter ones. Then Mark shut the door roughly and stomped back inside the house, because after all.. he placed one hand over his heart and squeezed, it wouldn’t stop trying to break out of his chest. How could he let someone that obviously possessed that much power to ruin his life into this place?

———————————

Outside the pale man stood alone. He was still staring at the door. Still hoping that Mark would come back out. That he would smile at him or laugh again. Jack looked down at his bandaged hands that blurred when water filled his eyes. “Oh lord. What should I do?”

———————————

When Mark entered back into the living room the smell of freshly made toast filled his nose and he noticed vaguely that the others had already left the room. Had his talk really been going on for that long? A question suddenly popped up and after some thought he decided to keep it at the front of his mind as he walked into the kitchen.

——————————

The kitchen was as cozy a place as ever and Mark visibly relaxed when he entered. This was his second to favourite after the nook and he spent a little while just looking at the mess that it currently was.

The kitchen part of the lodge was one of the bigger rooms with doors to both the living room and the pantry that also half served as a stash for materials to their workshop right across it. It was an L shaped room with lots of, clearly handmade, cupboards and kitchen countertops fastened to the walls. Cups, plates, a cookie jar and heaps of other kitchenware as well as a small plant was neatly placed in their respective place, or would’ve been if not someone had gone around messing it up this morning. The walls were the same as everywhere else in the house and strangely enough the rough planks never went out of fashion to Mark. They fitted the house perfectly, dark and sometimes failing in keeping its warmth but yet lovingly crafted. Mark allowed himself a brief smile as he walked over to the large stove that was the centrepiece of the room. It was currently going hot and as he pulled out one of the small stools from in under a nearby table and sat down he took in the wonderful smells that emanate from the burning wood.

He had just started to wonder where everyone was when something crashed against the floor behind him. Senses immediately on alert he turned around, ready to draw the small knife that he always carried on him. 

There was no need for such things, because even though the person behind him looked like he had just walked out from a horror movie with his hair all over the place, sunk in eyes and stubble the glaring blue eyes told Mark that this was none but their very own ex- northrend...er? Mark wasn’t quite sure what you called the people originating from the undead plagued continent of Northrend but the discovery, though grizzly, was calming.

“Morrn” The monster man ran a hand through his hair in a pointless fight against the cowlicks and he soon surrendered in favour of sitting down next to his friend. They sat in silence for a while, just watching the light from the fire dance on the floor. The light crackling sound from the wood and the pitter patter of rain starting to fall made for a tranquil atmosphere and Mark barely noticed when Felix finally spoke.

He had to repeat it before the other hunter had woken from his trance enough to listen. “Did you ever meet the one we hunted?” A sudden wave of nausea prevented Mark from answering at first but before the groggy Felix had time to notice he hurriedly answered “yes.. I think so at least” he met the eyes of the other man “My memories from then have gone blurry. I’m sure I saw its face but I just can’t seem to remember.” A picture flashed across his mind and he grabbed it for just a second before it escaped again. It was the figure of a man, he had his face turned away from him and his body’s outlines were hard to set, yet he felt such familiarity radiating from him. Shadows were rupturing from everywhere around the man, even from inside, and it filled Mark with such intense agony that he was forced to avert his eyes from Felix’s.

The blonde man looked worried but perhaps he was too hungover to piece his communication skills together enough to be of any help. Mark didn’t really expect anything from Felix but it was clear that the man did. He was saved from his predicament by clattering from the pantry. The door handle was yanked a couple times but it was clear the person on the other side was having problems.

Felix was about to rise to the rescue but Mark simply put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into his seat gently but firmly “drunks don’t help” he grinned at the perplexed face of the blonde that looked like he really wanted to retort with something sassy but just couldn’t clear his head enough.

When Mark finally opened the door a panicked Sam, hands occupied with a large stack of wood, exited and immediately rushed over to the stove, all the while mumbling something about “poor toast, poor toast”. After him came a rather amused looking Shalandras that when his gaze got caught by Marks chuckled and pointed at the courier with one thumb “He almost burned his toast”. 

Mark only raised an eyebrow as he followed the druid to sit down by the stove. “Why were you guys even in there?” The druid shrugged “Sam wanted to get some more fire wood and when I saw him running around I just thought that it’d be amusing to follow.” 

“You’re horrible”

“Thank you” Shalandras grinned at the fellow hunters horrified expression and was just about to say something else when Mark suddenly remembered what it was that he had wanted to ask when he first entered the kitchen.

“Say, you don’t happen to remember the face of the rogue?” Now all joy drained from the druids face and he frowned. “Yes.. it..” Mark grew restless when the frown only deepened “I..”

“You...?”

The night elf looked very stressed when he finally looked up at Mark again “I-I can’t remember.” 

Well, fuck. 

That illusionary bastard must have messed with their memories somehow. But why? It didn’t gain anything from erasing its puppet from their minds did it? While Mark was deep in thought Felix moved away from him, mumbling something about “getting some air” and “too damn hot”. It wasn’t until after he had exited the room that Marks thoughts somewhat connected and he remembered who had been outside before. “Felix, wai-“ 

But it was too late. A yelp was heard from outside and Mark stopped in the doorway, cursing his lungs out when he saw the scene before him. 

Somehow he had known that the strange medic couldn’t have gone far and indeed he hadn’t. The proof was right in front of him with an overly enthusiastic Felix basically interrogating the clearly shocked Jack that rarely had any chance to answer before he was bombarded with more questions. In fact the more petite man seemed quite pressed by the onslaught but also, in some strange kind of way,.. happy? Mark watched through slitted eyes that rarely left Jack as the pair started to talk more and more enthusiastically when Jack started to respond. There had to be a reason as to why the damn man hadn’t left yet.

The explanation soon arrived when Felix grabbed Jack and dragged him back to the lodge where Mark was still standing, effectively blocking the doorway.

“Haven’t you had enough already?” He leaned against the wall of the entrance. “We’re not a refuge for lost royal dogs” Felix flinched when he heard the words and looked like he wanted to give the rude hunter a piece of his mind but Jack cut in, surprising Mark.

“You’re right. I was sent from Stormwind, but no, I’m not here to take up space.” He locked eyes with him and to his dismay Mark found it impossible to look away. “I’m here only to help. Somethin you need dearly.”

When Jack finally quietened and the fog over his eyes faded he first saw only two people staring at him in surprise. That seemed to make him realise what he had been saying and he quickly broke eye contact in favour of looking at the suddenly extremely interesting wall. Lucky for him Felix took over the second he stopped and even the incredibly strong willed Mark could feel his body turn cold as his leader fixated him with an icy glare “What he said”

Without wasting a second he pushed himself, Jack closely protected by his arm, past the frozen self appointed guard and went inside with one last comment “Its raining. Maybe you should cool your head.”

That was no suggestion and Mark knew it. Though a grown man he grabbed his coat and swords and went outside, all the while sulking. He knew better anyone in this lodge that you shouldn’t ever mess with Felix when he gets serious. Mark had tried to fight him a number of times when the blonde hunter had first arrived to the lodge, declaring his leadership as soon as he entered. Now only scars stood as the reminder of those fights, and although they were scars among others on his large arms he could point out each one of them any time and recall the exact moment he got it. All fights had been over in a matter of seconds and the thing that roused the most turmoil inside of him was the fact that he knew in his heart that Felix had never even used even two thirds of his power.

Sighing Mark dejectedly closed the door behind him, giving it a small tug so it wouldn’t reopen. Then he stayed on the stairs and looked around for a while before deciding on which direction to go. Today, it would be the fourth route. 

The winding path called Hunters ring, or fourth route, passed by a total of four Forsaken outposts and of the five patrolling routes that they had established it was the one that demanded the most focus. A fitting path for someone that wanted to wake up Mark thought to himself as he pushed aside some bushes and sharpened his eyes, searching the area. He quickly found what he had been looking for, a moss green marking on a nearby tree, and stalked over to it. He then quickly sighted the next one and continued in that fashion until he had sunken so much into it that it pretty much went by heart. Then he let his mind wander the area freely, he didn’t want it to become too narrow, because, after all, in Silverpine forest you’re always playing at high stakes once you leave the roads, not less so when its raining.

————————

Inside the lodge a lively hearth was burning and multiple pelts from different animals were laid out in front of it, closely accompanied by some pillows and a stool on which a tray holding steaming mugs of coffee and some toast was placed.

Jack sat close to the hearth, as close as the intense heat allowed. He had a blanket wrapped around him and in his hands he was holding one of the mugs, quietly staring into the steam that rose from it. He had taken all possible precautions to chase out the constant cold that haunted him, yet it lingered and he felt so.. tired.

There was nothing whispering in his mind now, for the first time in forever it was quiet. And despite the constant cold he felt so warm as he sighed softly and closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall. Everything was so calm, so cozy. He could hear the faint murmurs of the other residents of the lodge as they went about their morning routines. A fresh smell of fir trees and potted plants mixed with the musky scent of freshly brewed coffee and toasts, the sharp sound of a cup being dropped followed by a string of curses that was too dampened by the walls to hear clearly went through the house and he broke into a content smile. This place was nice, no wonder Mark liked it here. 

The thought of the other hunter disturbed him somewhat and he bit his lip in pain as he remembered the look that Mark had given him when he had tried to make him realise that he was dying. “He doesn’t remember me at all does he?” Jack mumbled the words to himself and himself only and was therefore quite surprised when a loud “waff” answered him.

Tiny paws warm paws were placed on his crossed legs and when the visitor clumsily climbed fully into his lap he a last recognised its attempts at conversation and slowly opened his eyes. Then he froze. 

The tiny figure of a small dog was sat in between his legs, its paws on his stomach as it watched him with curious eyes. “No” The small one tilted its head, now looking at him quizzically. Jack placed a quivering hand on the golden fur and like he had thought all memories instantly washed over him. “How?” Gently he cupped its head and met its gaze, its fur was so soft.. “how can you be alive?”

“Waff!”

The puppy yelped happily and looked into his eyes. “Mark..” Jack could feel tears welling up inside his eyes as his voice cracked “It was Mark wasn’t it.” A small yelp answered him and he broke into a pained smile. “Oh lord. Im so so sorry” 

He barely had time to finish the sentence before his voice broke and he gave in to the immense sadness and relief that he felt inside, hugging the small dog close as he tried his best to muffle his cries in the soft fur. It hurt so much. All the things that his so called owner had forced him to do. It was all his fault too. He had gone too far in his search. A search that ultimately had all been for nothing since a certain well built man with deep springs for eyes didn't even remember him.

How stupid.

Jack carefully moved the puppy to sit on the floor beside him before curling into a ball, still with his back against the wall. He was such a stupid fool. 

_____________________

When Felix later that day entered the living room together with Bob he quickly spotted the balled up figure. He was resting against the wall, head in his arms that were propped up on the knees. The blanket was laying draped over his shoulders and it moved slowly with every deep breath that the sleeping man took.

It was long past midday and the fire was no longer burning. The coffee had long since gone cold but the still smouldering wood kept the room temperature nice and warm. Beside Jack a small golden puppy was resting, its head close to his thigh. Small growls and yelps sounded from the petite dog as it dreamt about something, probably a hunt or a nice puddle of water.

Wade smiled when he saw this but he quickly had to act when Felix made a break for them with a piece of charcoal raised high. The escapee was quickly grabbed by a large hand and Wade put an arm across Felix mouth before forcefully dragging the squirming man away, suffering heavy graffiti to his forearm in the process.

When the chaotic duo had exited the room everything went back to the tranquil place it had been before. But only for a short while. As the rain started to fall heavier against the windows the room darkened and slowly shadows started to form. Silently creeping toward the snoozing duo. The inky tentacles were just about to touch when the door to the living room suddenly slammed open and a rectangle of warm light was painted on the dark floor. 

Jack stirred when the light hit his eyes and turned, forcing the tendrils away. A loud shout was heard and suddenly smoke was welling into the room. “The soup is burning” Shalandras stated as he sauntered out of the kitchen. When he saw the sleeping forms he smiled faintly and disappeared in the direction of the workshop instead, how could anyone sleep through this? No matter. He would surely find someone else to pester.

In the time the druid was gone a dripping wet Mark entered the area, dry, hot, fire the only thing on his mind. When he saw Jack and the puppy though he stopped and swiftly exited the house again, muttering to himself.

Then Shalandras came back, an irritated looking Bob in trail. They both didn't pay anyone much mind and calmly entered the kitchen where Sam was currently dying from suffocation. Shalandras picked up the courier and nodded to Bob before returning the way he came. When he once again saw Jack a mischievous smile creeped onto his lips and sneakily he stalked toward him, Sam hanging limply on his shoulder. He then carefully placed the unconscious man by Jacks side and ran away as fast as he could just as Wade entered the room again.

The first time Wade passed the sleeping by he didn't notice anything out of place. But when he had checked up on Bob to discuss how the hell you actually manage to set fire to a soup and was about to head back to the sleeping quarters he flinched upon discovering the third party member. Sam was practically laying on top of Jack, his face and the accompanying line of drool uncomfortably close. Cursing Wade made his way out of the room. He had some suspicions of who was the cause of this.

For the following hours people kept running in and out of the living room. Wood was pushed into the fireplace, pelts were set on fire, charcoal attacks were made and knocked out people kept getting placed around Jack & co by someone that Wade somehow never managed to find. In the end even he collapsed and fell asleep on the floor. That was the moment a long eared shape melted out of the shadows and pulled him toward the fireplace. Shalandras finished his work of art by yawning and as a finishing touch he made room for himself and fell asleep somewhere between Wade and Sam.

_________________

Later that evening, right as the sun had started to set Mark returned. His boots were filled with water, his hair was filled with water, his clothes were drained as hell, even his skin had a thick layer of water on it. “Those people better be gone from the fire now” He muttered to himself as he took off his boots and roughly turned them upside down. A cascade of water immediately exited the general shoe area but when Mark put a hand inside the boot it still felt like an ocean in there. Sighing he removed his jacket and walked into the living room.

“What the hell” Mark watched the heap of human bodies, too confused and soaked to come up with any explanation as to how this had happened. All of his colleagues and other people were laying in a heap and where there earlier only had been Jack and a puppy Bob, Wade, Sam, Felix and Shalandras were now sleeping. They looked like a piece of modern art, cozy modern art one might add, and Mark would have been tempted to join them had it not been for the case that everyone looked like they were in agony. All except Shalandras that wore the smile of someone that had accomplished something great and the puppy that was laying in Jacks hair, head in its paws and eyes closed as its body moved with every deep breath.

Muttering to himself Mark grumpily walked up the stairs to the nook. It might be colder and lonelier but there at least he could escape all this madness. Without warning Jack popped up into his mind and Mark shook it furiously to rid him of the thought. That goddamn man hurt him so much and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't understand why that was.


	9. Just a quick question..

Hello hello, this is Sneaky here and um... I’m sorry to disappoint you that this is not a new chapter but I was thinking of asking some things.

First of all, is it okay that I don’t write Jacks accent too pronunced? Its been bugging me a bit but I don’t really know how to write an Irish accent in a good way since his real accent isn’t that obvious to begin with. 

Secondly, I’ve already asked this, as well as the question above, in last chapters notes but since I know that a lot of people (myself is a great example of this) don’t read the notes I’ll ask again. I can keep calling him Jack right? I know his real name is Sean and I don’t mind switching if that’s what you guys want but in that case I need to know so I won’t have to change it in a thousand places instead of ten.

And lastly. I’m thinking of writing some memory sequences for Mark and there’s basically two ways for me to do it.  
1\. I write it as if Mark is cast back into the memory and experiences it again with his current mindset and thoughts.  
2\. I write it from the perspective of the Mark that existed then, with his feelings and thoughts.

 

This amnesia twist of Marks wasn’t planned when I started to write this since I wanted to make it as short and simple a story as possible but... *looks away* I really can’t help complicating things (￣▽￣;) Because of this bad habit of mine there might be need for some retcons, so do take caution. 

Anyways, I really hope that you like or at least don’t mind the direction this is taking. I’m personally very excited for the great opportunities for angst that this provides *crazed smile* I’ve also looked up things online and read some scientific stuff so Marks condition could actually ,probably, exist. So I’m very proud of that. Also I’m just rambling so I’m going to stop now but finally I just want you to know how much every kudo and nice comment I get means to me. At times when I feel like my storywriting is trash just thinking about it makes me want to try and pick up the story again. So thank you so so much ^^ I really love you guys and as long as I can make you happy and fed on septiplier fluff and angst I’m satisfied. Next time it will be a real chapter! See you *hugs everyone*


	10. Memory 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya!

“I said I’m fine”

Mark shrugged off a clingy northrender that had once again failed in his attempt to capture Mark for inspection.

“Don’t lie. You’re clearly very much not fine Mark” Felix once again sat up on the bedroom floor and glared at his friend. It was the morning after Jacks arrival and everyone was gathered in their sleeping quarters, sitting or standing in every area possible in the cramped room. There was a thick blanket of worry resting over them, dampening the happy mood from yesterday.

“We heard a scream” Wade added. “I suffer from insomnia, you shouldn’t be surprised, really.” Mark retorted angrily. He felt like such a baby to have everyone care for him like this.

Felix leaned in and squeezed Marks shoulder gently “This feels too much like the time I first arrived here. Remember that? You tried to kill me. Though I recall those screams were more of anger and not pain” Mark grimaced. Of course he remembered that. It was the very first scars he got. “Is that supposed to be a comforting memory?” He smiled half heartedly at his friend. “Yes” Felix grinned back and it looked like he was about to let Mark go, but right in the moment that his hand left Marks arm another one replaced it. This one was slightly paler and made his arm experience an obvious drop in temperature.

“I.. I might know why?” An accented voice cut through the air, wavering slightly when the person got too much attention at once.

“Really?” Mark hid his head in his hands when Felix got all his spirits back. He knew he had to do something before this got out of hand and decided to turn to the rage building up inside of him “Its only one scream for titans sake! Won’t you let it rest already?”

Now that got everyones attention back and Mark actually felt a little bad when Jack flinched and looked down. He clearly had received the message but somehow Mark didn’t feel happy or relieved at all.

The atmosphere had suddenly gotten a lot more awkward and that was one of the things that Mark really couldn’t deal with right now. To top it off the arm he now kept hidden beneath a jacket was starting to pulse again.

I’m sorry.

Mark cast a final glance at Jack before exiting the room. They didn’t need to worry about him. He put his hand on the long cut and a sting of sadness darkened his expression. The arm that had received the cut was so pale now, the warm sunburnt tone of his barely visible anymore. A wave of agony swallowed him and he barely had time to close the door before he was knocked down. His sight went dark for a second and he sank down against the wall and looked at the wounded arm. The veins were clearly visible beneath the transparent skin now and they were a pulsing green. Another wave of nausea and Mark had to put a hand over his mouth to force his scream back. He didn’t need to look when the wave had passed because he knew that with every pang of agony, every breath and heartbeat, the poison only wandered closer to his heart.

He was dying.

————————————

Jack stayed long after the others left to carry on with their morning. He was sitting on his newly assigned bed in the dimly lit room. The patchwork blanket was soft against his legs and although the bed was really roughed up it felt good to have a place to sleep in again.

But the comfort of the bed was not the reason he had stayed. As soon as everyone had left the room he rose and walked over to the door that Mark had disappeared through. There was a small sign by the door saying “workshop” in clumsy letters. He noticed vaguely how the k was too big and forced the rest of the word to press up against the edge. It almost looked like they were about to tumble over it. It looked cute and the thought made him smile faintly.

The smile was nothing more but faint though and when he turned and was faced by the incredibly large, it seemed to him, door he clenched his hands. He knew why Mark had left but to be honest he had no idea how to reach the other man.

“I’m nobody to him right now”

Jack stopped his hand right as his fingertips touched the door. Something had clearly happened to Mark after he left back then. He sighed as he let the hand fall down to rest limply by his side. The memories were too much and Jack wished so so much that he had realised back then, when there had been only the two of them left, just how much he had meant to Mark.

“Dammit, I’m sorry Mark” his vision went blurry when he sank down against the door and put his head in his arms, barely holding back the tears that threatened to overflow as he whispered into the darkness “What happened to you?”

—————————

“Why am I like this?” Mark partly knew the answer but asked himself anyway. It was a kind of last resort strategy, a means to cancel out everything he felt. The memories from his time in Stormwind was like a pain relief, they hurt so much that they killed everything, leaving only a cold numbness. A feeling that Mark had leaned more and more into lately, not unlike the way he had used to drown out everything in the times before the lodge.

He actually didn’t know how he ended up in the capital of the humans, the memories after his brothers disappearance and his first time laying eyes on the city that would be his doom was covered by a thick fog that he didn’t want to disturb no matter what. The fog was of his own creation and if his mind had decided to hide anything from him it had to be for a good reason. So Mark did his best to only lightly approach his memories as he leaned back against the door that felt strangely safe for some reason. Pain was still coursing through his veins but the warmth soon enveloped him and Mark closed his eyes with a sigh.

——— memory 1 ———

He was out in the forests again. Like so many times before his heart was pumping fast and his lungs were heaving with every breath. Mark recognised this. The way his hands shook and his head pounded under the strain from the images of what he had just seen. They kept scrolling past, too fast for him to catch on.

The reason he was feeling like this was heavily clouded but it made him feel extremely uncomfortable and hurt nevertheless. He didn’t want to relieve this anymore. But when he carefully tried to cancel his memories they wouldn’t budge. Instead he found himself trapped in the body of his old self as his unfocused eyes tried to find something, anything, that would make the frenzy stop, but in the end they found only wet soil. Mark felt how his back hit a nearby trunk as his senses went from a roaring storm to a loud noise to finally slow down completely. He was okay. Everything was okay. This would soon be over, surely.

.............

Mark clenched his hands as his memory self started to relax. It was easy to see that he had made a stupid ass mistake but.. he might as well try to relax and see what this memory had to offer Mark quietly reasoned with himself as he closed his eyes and let the senses of his past completely take control.

............

Large lush trees, many times thicker and taller than any human stood tall all around him, their canopies covering large parts of the midnight sky. There billions of stars shone back at him when a small breeze picked up and ruffled his hair. It was like being one with the whole forest. He could hear the sound of flowing water, the rustle of leaves when a mouse darted through the underbrush and then the quiet hoot of an owl over the quiet ambiance of crickets playing. The scents were so calming and Mark closed his eyes when the scent of lilies and grass hugged him so very gently.

In the outer perimeters of his mind he could faintly hear the sound of a waterwheel spinning and the low murmurs of small groups of people walking home or taking a midnight stroll. He knew that should he turn around the glimmering lights of Goldshire would greet him. The small town was asleep now but its mere presence was like a loud cacophony in the back of his mind. There was no choice, he couldn’t stay here. Not now.

..............

He hadn’t meant to end up outside the white walls of Stormwind. But somehow, when he watched the sun set behind the large structures he felt like it was some kind of weird destiny. That he was meant to be here. The large shadows stretched out toward him and almost touched when he recalled something. His whole reason for being here. Someones betrayal had made him walk the tenths of kilometres to here without ever feeling like he could turn around. This person had been someone important and Mark had originally intended to return, just like after every time he had seen that woman kiss or touch him. But somehow this wasn’t like every other time and as fog started to roll in Mark threw away the picture of his friend and walked inside.

.............

A couple sleepy guards greeted him as he entered. The night was nice and soft so no one was in the mood to do anything about the lone man in dirtied clothes. Surely there was too much else on their minds Mark thought as he walked past them. He bet that not one of them would hesitate to throw their armour in the water far below and hurry back to their homes and loved ones. This soft evening was perfect for late picnics, romantic dinners or stargazing and Mark felt how a small pained smile crept onto his lips as he recalled how he had used to watch the stars with.. there something strange happened. The fog started to creep past him in misty tendrils and suddenly he got very afraid of what it would bring. So instead of trying to remember he hurried past the entrance and entered into the first of Stormwinds many streets.

..........

The white capital was as beautiful as ever and the soft evening light and lingering warmth had drawn more of its citizens out on the streets than usual. Wherever Mark went he was surrounded by tightly intertwined couples or the occasional lone person that walked the cobblestone roads silently.

When the last beams of sunlight left sank behind the white buildings a shade of blue descended over the city and when the beautiful street lamps flickered on Mark heard the faint sound of music playing. He had nowhere to go and let out a small sigh as he started to follow the loud voices of happy and perhaps a bit too tipsy people. He might as well try to enjoy this before he returned.

...........

“Heya!” The jolly voice belonging to a slender night elven bartender greeted him the second he walked inside the bar. The little tavern named “The blue recluse” was located inside the dwindling green streets of Mage quarters and Mark had ended up there by chance after having followed the streams of people, constantly joining the less shady ones, he didn’t want to end up on the streets here.

The blue recluse was packed with all races belonging to the alliance and Mark spotted everything from rowdy groups of dwarfs and pandaren to more reclusive parties of night elves or draenei sitting around the round tables, preferably in the garden belonging to the tavern, chatting idly.

A small group of gnomes, not reaching taller than his knees, suddenly bumped into him and the front gnome, wearing a pair of red goggles and fancy clothes, fell down. “Milly!” One of the other gnomes, this one was a female Mark noticed, squeaked upon seeing the fate of her friend. She had eyes as round and big as plates and they were a beautiful lime green. Her pink bubblegum hair was tied up in a strange straight up braid and Mark couldn’t help but chuckle when she hurried over to try and raise the clearly gone male gnome.

Unluckily for Mark the edgier gnome of the party noticed him chuckling and he yelped in pain when a sharp kick hit his shin. “Don’t look so smug ya big klutz!” A black haired gnome man with grey eyes stared up at him angrily. This gnome was wearing a black leather set and with his spiky hair he looked just like an angry squirrel or the like.

The thing about the angry fella though was that he indeed had weapons on him and despite his small stature Mark didn’t really want to find out what he could do with those knives. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you”

That had obviously been the wrong thing to say and the grey eyes of the gnome practically flared with rage when he answered in a strained voice “Get down on the floor. Now.” Mark had no idea how to respond to that “I said get down!” Suddenly the little guy spun around and brought one of his feet into the back of Marks knees. Before his mind had time to register what had happened he was on his knees and had a small hand clutching his hair harshly. “Apologise to Milly and Zelma.” Mark glanced over at the other gnomes. The bubblegum haired gnome was clutching the drunk one, her eyes wide with fear, probably because of the way her friend treated Mark. “No, Simon sto-“ she reached out for the black gnome but was interrupted when a big lilac hand reached down and picked him up.

“No fighting please” the bartender towered above them and as he looked down at Mark he suddenly realised in just what position he was in with his knees on the floor and hands against the floor. The night elf raised an eyebrow and Mark felt a slight heat light up his cheeks and stood up quickly, dusting himself off awkwardly in the process.

The night elf then proceeded to show the gnomes the way out of the tavern, all the while comforting the woman and handing the fallen gnome a cup of cold water. When the small party had disappeared around the corner he turned to the disoriented Mark and put out his hand “Daris” he smiled “Daris Gentlebreeze”

After some hesitation Mark smiled back and took the hand, it was large and strong “Mark. Mark Fischbach.”

“Mark huh?” Daris let go off his hand and started to make his way back to the bar where a slender draenei woman had covered for him. “What brings you here this late evening?” The night elf was strikingly handsome with his chiseled features, well built body and long green hair tied back so there took some moments for Mark to answer, just about enough for the night elf to look back at him quizzically “I-I just happened to... drop by?”

Daris laughed, a beautiful and kind laugh that made Marks heart clench in bad ways. “This place seem to have that kind of effect on people” Daris grinned and shot him a glass of liquor across the bar. Mark smiled back, he was feeling a little bit more comfortable now and tried to not let his eyes wander too much across the night elfs smooth skin as he grabbed the glass but left it full. “Y-yeah, I guess” Oh god, he was so awkward. Mark unconsciously slapped himself several times, wishing pain on everything that made him like this.

Daris didn’t seem to mind though and he only cast one short glance at the exposed skin of Marks neck before leaning down to rest against the desk. “How come you happened to drop by though? You don’t look like you’re a native of the “great capital life”” he grinned as his purple hands made exaggerated gestures upon mentioning the supposed standards of a Stormwind citizen. Mark was eager to make the other feel like he was worth keeping company but despite that urge he couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy. “I’m sorry but I really don’t want to talk about it now”

He attempted a halfhearted smile but upon meeting Daris glowing gaze he had no choice but to stare down at the undisturbed surface of his glass of liquor. Surely he would be seen as boring now. Daris would leave.. just like everyone else had.

Mark didn’t notice when a thin line of fog started to gather on the floor but he did notice when Daris put one cool hand across his own hot and said in a low voice “you know. The best way to get over someone is to party your brains out.”

Somehow Mark would normally have had a hard time seeing how that would help anything but maybe there was something in the air that night that made the idea seem so appealing. He had had enough of second thoughts now around, he just wanted to smile and feel happy again, like.. suddenly the floor pulsated and as white mist rose all around him he fell.. but was saved from toppling over by two strong arms.

Daris looked so good in the golden lights of the tavern and as the mists subsided once again Mark threw away another piece and stood up. Once in a while its nice to just stop thinking and to be led on by someone who so obviously is only looking for a one nighter it seems and Mark gladly gave in to the late summer night madness as he slowly began to leave everything behind.

...............

Later that same night they were standing outside the door to Daris room. Saying that the night elf had had a bit too much to drink would be nothing short of a lie and Mark constantly had to balance the unsteady man that seemed to want nothing less than stripping down judging by the way he constantly tried to remove his shirt or unbuckle his belt.

Mark on the other hand wasn’t in any way drunk. Not of alcohol at least and while the mess of a person balancing against him wouldn’t seem very sexy to anyone else the drug that was nighttime, music and a million scents and bodies being too close for too long had made his senses fuzzy and disoriented to say the least. That wasn’t saying he didn’t understand what was happening when his drunk companion pushed him down on the bed and although the other man was strong Mark was no weakling himself, so when Daris started to unzip his pants he made a quick decision.

There was no way that he could go through with this. The face of someone he knew but couldn’t recognise kept flashing before his eyes and was stirring up too much emotion. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to become someones sex toy, he didn’t want anyone but “him” to touch him. Who this “he” was Mark yet again had no answer to but when Daris started to press him down he pushed back.

“Stop” Daris only stared at him, arousal clearly dimming all senses of understanding. Yet Mark tried again, he didn’t want to hurt anyone. “You’re drunk. Let go.”

The night elf wobbled for a moment but soon leaned closer again, whispering something in his ear. “No. Everyone wandt..wam..wants me” His breath was tainted with the stench of alcohol and Mark wanted to puke. “There clearly is no use trying to reason with this man” a voice inside inside his head screamed. Despite that he really wanted to be calm about this, but the constant pounding need in his veins and the hammer that crushed his thoughts made it hard to think rationally.

So instead of keeping on to try and reason with the drunk he pushed back his “partner”, with a little too much force it seemed as Daris hit the nearby wall hard and fell down on the floor with a thud. Mark was panicking now and as fog started to trickle in through the open windows he ran. He didn’t know why, didn’t know where, all that he knew was that this pounding had to stop before the fog took him. He didn’t want to see it. Didn’t need to see what was hiding behind.

The last thing Mark heard before snapping out of the maze his thoughts had become was a loud “you will regret this!” following him through the streets. At that time he had no idea how true that would prove to be.

—————————

“Mark”

Someone was shaking him gently and at first he didn’t want to recognise the presence of another person. But when someone pinched his nose hard he had no option but to open his eyes. Clearly irritated now.

Before him Shalandras and Sam were crouching. Sam was holding a piece of wood and a knife, Shalandras held a hammer, making the duo look like quite the murderous couple. Mark sighed when he saw them and pulled a hand across his face in some half hearted attempt to make them disappear. When it didn’t work he grumbled and sat up a little straighter, propping his arms up on his legs. “What do you want?”

Sam opened his mouth but Shalandras was the quickest to answer. “Well. First of all you were sitting in here by yourself, looking all wimpy and life contemplating.”

“Secondly” Sam broke in “could you maybe, perhaps.. help me a little?” If anyone was looking wimpy it was the courier Mark thought to himself absentmindedly. Well, it wasn’t that strange since he probably knew the answer already.

“No”

Sams face visibly fell but Mark didn’t feel very bad. He couldn’t always help people just because they asked. “You never help anyway” a small voice in the back of his mind kindly reminded him but he simply shook it off. He needed to process those memories. This decision was final.

Or at least it was until a voice belonging to a certain mage appeared in his mind. “Felix needs your help. He wants to build a pug canon.”

“Really?” Mark always felt uncomfortable speaking to a disembodied voice in his head but for some reason Bob seemed to prefer this over shouting his lungs out, strange.

“Really. This is an order from the king he said. We should be expecting a full day of slavery.” Bob sounded really tired and Mark understood exactly why. Felix's wild ideas never ended well for anyone so he simply answered. “Can’t right now. I’m helping Sam and Shalandras making something.”

A string of muttered curse words were heard through the telepathic link and when Bob answered it was obvious he was grumpy “We’ll take Jack instead then” Mark shrugged “Do as you please”

When Bob had hung up Mark turned to the other confused looking two and wrapped his arms around their shoulders while leading them toward the big table in the centre of the workshop “I just changed my mind. Let’s get crafting”.

 

 

————————————————————————————————————————————

 

I discovered a new app on my iPad today, I did some doodles and ended up with this.. I know that they’re supposed to have brown hair in this fic but colored hair is just irresistible when it comes to paintings *laughs nervously* I know that it maybe doesnt even look that much like them but.. I-I’m very proud of this one ^^

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I’m not too sure how this chapter turned out. We’re getting into some really sensitive parts here and I really really don’t want this to get too weird. I’m also still not completely sure how to write Marks memories, how to combine them with reality and I truly don’t want this all to be just a bunch of random memory sequenses while I still can’t let there be too much time between them cuz then it might get confusingandIreallydon’tknow*Internal screaming*
> 
> A-anyway, please do tell me how much drama you like because I’m currently choosing between two scenes, one’s more romantic but also dramatic while the other is more slow paced and fluffy.
> 
> *gets terrible idea* you know what? I could just kill everyone off.. *incomprehensible mumblings* yes... that’s the angstiest end possible. I’ll just sink into darkness before I fuck something up.. *clears throat* anyway. I might need some more time to plan out these next chapters so.. yup.. seeha


	11. Workshop happenings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a little longer chapter than usual, hopefully it will be enjoyable! Also, on a small sidenote, I have been feeling really tired and unmotivated lately so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with doing frequent updates for a little while. I will however try to make sure that I won’t be away for too long ^^
> 
> *hugs everyone* You guys are the best

“You might want to watch out Mark” the man in question heard the words only moments before a splinter as large as his thumb came rocketing toward his left eye. Shalandras who had seen it happening had as always been way too lazy to warn in time and Mark cursed as he barely dodged the missile.

“What the hell do you think that you’re doing??” He spun around on his heels and grabbed the poor courier by the collar. “I-I was just trying to cut this handle, Sir” He hid behind the tool in a poor defence against the rage standing before him, and as expected the hammer proved to be utterly useless as protection and Sam was quickly disarmed. “With this?” Mark slowly put away the hammer, anger visible in every move. He was this close to smacking someone with it and he didn’t know if Sam or the useless night elf standing behind him was more fitting.

“Y-yes, but Shalandras said..!” 

Shalandras it is then. Mark let out a deep sigh as he let go off his potential victim. All in favour of pulling a hand across his face. “You guys are useless aren’t you?” Shalandras and Sam stared at him with big innocent eyes “there’s no wonder you both ended up here” No reaction “This is the garbage dump of the capital after all” Sam tilted his head.

“Look”

Mark wanted to cry. “How the hell did you think that you could use a hammer to make a handle? No, never mind that. What are you even making??” Now Sam actually moved and quickly exited the room. With only Shalandras and Mark left awkwardness swiftly descended but thankfully the courier soon returned. 

Without a word the blonde man hurried over to Mark and presented a small piece of paper to him. On it several words were scribbled around a perfect drawing of a sword.

“So, you want to use the material of your letter cutters (yes, he called Sams weapon that and he wasn’t sorry at all) to craft a longsword?” 

Sam nodded. “I’m going to call it Angelic-a” Mark didn’t even give the other man the satisfaction of reacting to that name. Instead he merely took the drawing and put it on the working table. He then motioned for the other two to come over.

“Since you want to make it a larger sword than before you’re going to need to use some of our material too.” Sam blinked. How could he not get it? “Alright Sam. Lets take it step by step. First just.. go and hammer on that piece of metal I guess.” At the end of his sentence Mark pointed at some silvery pieces of metal over at the other side of the table and to his relief both Sam and Shalandras walked over to it. He could swear that sometimes those two seemed to be joined at the hip, both in terms of mind and action.

Well, anyway, he needed to get working on the real sword while the other two still thought that it would help in any way to hammer that piece of crap metal to death. Because after all the idea of gearing up wasn’t that stupid, even though the thought of giving the moron duo weapons with longer range didn’t seem too safe in Marks eyes.

——————

In the end Mark couldn’t work by himself for long before Shalandras and Sam caught on and he had to, to his dismay, give them actual tasks. Something that went surprisingly well and although he did have to avoid a couple of wayward screws and was terribly close to being beheaded once he almost started to reconsider his original opinion that they were morons.

“Look Mark” when he turned around Shalandras and Sam were standing behind him, both holding a piece of the sword in their hands. The two parts, the shaft and knob, were in no way masterfully crafted but Mark still returned their smiles, though his was a bit dimmed. “You did good. Now go refine those a bit will you”.

“Aye Sir” Sam saluted and pulled the night elf after him as he hurried back to their little area. It was actually quite nice watching the two dorks doing their thing, it reminded him of how he had used to make his own weapons together with.. once again Marks heart clenched painfully when his mind was flooded with dark mist. “Whatever” He mumbled quietly to himself as he broke down the couriers sword into little pieces. Those times were long gone and he had too many things on his mind already.

————————

Later that same day the sun has started to set and Mark was just about to strangle Shalandras for the fifth time when his hunter instincts suddenly kicked in. It all happened without warning and he was actually dangerously close to seriously hurt the night elf as adrenalin started to flood his veins. There was someone close. Someone he recognised.

The rogue. 

It was like someone pulled open the curtains on a sunny day when his sight sharpened to almost inhuman accuracy. His heart started to beat harder and harder and Mark completely ignored the shocked duo by his feet as his hearing grew ever more sensitive.

How could the rogue be in here? It shouldn’t have been that easy to enter and Felix group wasn’t far away at all. As a matter of fact he heard them right outside the house. They seemed to be looking for someone but that was hardly abnormal since no one wanted to be there except Felix.

Yet there was no mistaking it. There was a presence behind the door to the sleeping area and Mark motioned to his trainees to stay quiet as he slowly stalked over. His back was against the door and his weapons drawn when he heard a strange sound. It sounded.. happy. The voice was muffled as if someone tried desperately to not sound too loud and Mark frowned. Why was the rogue laughing?

“Dammit” This was no rogue. Mark scoffed as realisation hit him and sheathed his swords swiftly before brusquely pulling open the thick door, making the person behind yelp as he lost his balance and tumbled into the room. By pure reflex Mark caught the falling person and when his instincts finally settled down he found himself holding a completely red Jack that met his gaze, shocked. 

Fuck.

To his horror Mark found that he couldn’t move at all and rather than backing away he was getting closer, suddenly very curios to explore why the man he held was so red. His interest only grew as Jacks blush kept deepening until Mark stayed, only moments from touching his lips. 

By now half of everything in Mark screamed to close the distance while the other half fought desperately to pull away. One side was losing horribly and for every moment that Mark stayed close to Jacks porcelain skin he only wanted to get closer. His gaze shifted to the pinks lips, slightly parted and so kissable when the pale man tried not to breathe. For now he resisted the temptation but couldn’t keep himself from tracking the pale skin of Jacks neck with his fingertips, the mans reactions were so satisfying and he felt intrigued to no end when he placed his hand by his ear and cupped his head, forcing out a weak sound as Jacks breath hitched.

At this moment Mark did the dumbest thing possible in this situation as he flicked up his gaze and met two blue oceans partly hidden by delicate eyelashes, pulling him in like tide. His pupils are dilated. Mark vaguely noticed to himself as he let his hand run up the pale neck again, pulling him closer.

Moments later he was on the floor. He had no idea how or why but above him a deep red Jack stood, clenched fists by his sides. The blue pools of his eyes had turned a stormy grey as they flashed with the aftermath of a bolt of green lightning, too small to notice. “Don’t” The whole of Jack was shaking and although Mark didn’t truly have any recollection of what he had done except for some dizzy pictures he suddenly felt really bad. 

I’m sorry.

The words needed to be spoken so desperately but yet it didn’t feel like this was the place for them, so despite the heart wrenching and mind crushing pain that he felt he only averted his gaze in shame. Jack saw this and Mark could’ve sworn that his eyes turned a shade darker. “Don’t do unnecessary things Mark” 

Somehow those words hurt so much. He had heard them before, said by his most important person at the worst possible moment.. yes, back when he had come running back like a dog again. Without warning pain exploded through his arm and his sight went black. This time for good, he was sure.

The last thing he saw was Sam and Shalandras terrified gazes from behind a stool and how the person he loved more than anything turned around in the doorway, only that this time he wasn’t the blue eyed kind man that confused him so. No. Now his eyes were glowing green and Mark had no time to scream before the rogue exited the room. 

Yes. This was just like every single time in his miserable life. He could never protect anyone. 

———————

The calm sound of water hitting rocks gently stirred him to consciousness and when he drowsily opened his eyes Mark found himself staring up into a starry sky, lightly dusted with red. Small waves were lapping against his body and the sounds of nature created a beautiful chorus all around him. Strangely the cool shallow water didn’t seem to wet his clothes and with it came a clear sense of surrealism that disturbed the calm quite a bit. What had happened?

Mark had no idea where this was or what he was doing here but when a lime green toad suddenly landed on his face he got so surprised that he sat up, sending the toad flying in the rudest way possible. 

Water trickled down his face from a wet leaf in his hair and Mark absentmindedly reached up and pulled it back as he tried to figure out how the hell this had happened. Something had obviously gone wrong and when he unconsciously touched the wound on his arm he found that it didn’t exist. In fact his whole body was so strange, his clothes were the same simple ones as always but when he stood up the water didn’t react at all to his movements. He tried to flick a nearby cattail but although he could feel himself touching it it was like the movement wasn’t there. He tried to kick the grass but it wouldn’t move. It was a strange feeling to exist without being able to affect and Mark was almost swept of his feet by a strong sense of vertigo. 

He didn’t have time to feel confused for long though because soon a strange pull started to take a hold of him. It started off as a gentle breeze, or perhaps a tender caress, nudging him towards somewhere but soon picked up to a full blown storm practically throwing his dream self through the seemingly endless forest.

At long last he reached a cobblestone road lit by some crooked lamps that cast long shadows in the evening light. There the wind changed direction and soon Mark found himself running along the path, passing by a patrol of horse ridden guards that didn’t acknowledge him at all as well as a couple of adventurers that were out running errands befitting the low threat zone. Along the way he started to realise where he were as well as where he was probably heading, and the thought made his heart beat madly with excitement bordering on crushing angst.

He was in Elwynn Forest. The most lush couple of trees north of Stranglethorn and home to almost everything that had gone wrong with his life. The forest stretched out to the east and west bordering to withered areas such as Duskwood and Westfall, not even mentioning the hellholes that were Redridge mountains and the Burning Steppes. The grand capital of the force named Alliance was placed on the coast to the west and from there a simple net of roads were laid out among the giant trees, leading to places like the walled in Northshire or the far Eastvale logging camp. In the centre of this the gem of a village named Goldshire was placed. Goldshire was famous for being the knitting point of most of the traffic through Elwynn and because of that position it had grown prosperous to an almost ridiculous extent, quickly becoming a nest for craftsmen and vendors from many different backgrounds and homes. 

Mark recalled that he had spent quite some time in the village but strangely enough he couldn’t remember much. He remembered the famous inn of the village, the Lions Pride Inn that had earned its reputation of decadency and practically every other unholy act possible through years of activity. Mark had visited there once, he didn’t know what had brought him there but he has this distinct feeling that he had been on the edge of desperation and also that he had gone home that night untouched.

No matter. Mark quickly got pulled out of his own thoughts when the buzzing sounds of a large gathering of people reached him. He hadn’t heard that many voices for so long and when he looked up from the uneven pattern of the road he almost stopped. 

Right before him, only a couple hundred metres ahead the beautiful buildings of Goldshire reached for the sky. The great wooden gate into the village stood open, letting out the vibrant lights of the buildings behind it. In the light of the gate the source to all the voices was spread out among an unruly mess of green and purple striped tents. 

When Mark got closer to the fare the winds pushing him quickly slowed and stilled and to his surprise he actually almost missed them. He still had no idea what was happening but it was obvious now that this dream wanted him somewhere. The only problem was that with the pull gone Mark was now completely lost. All around him beautiful silver eyed elves, brusque dwarves, exotic Draenei and humans dressed in extravagant clothes walked around in groups or couples. Everywhere he looked there were huge smiles and excited squeals or shouts when the green clad wizards teleported someone or made silver sparks fly through the air. A burning torch almost hit Mark and he only barely dodged the projectile before stumbling and falling to the ground helplessly. 

It felt like being in the middle of a maelstrom and Mark watched with eyes that turned darker by the second as the whirlpool of people surrounded him, unknowing and uncaring of his presence. 

This was exactly why he had killed them all.

Mark grimaced as he painstakingly stood up and dusted off his clothes. These happy people were disgusting. They didn’t care for anything but their own selfish joy, they didn’t understand him, didn’t care to, and they never even tried to help him when he needed it. They dared to laugh when he couldn’t and he detested that.

He had to get out of this hellhole, he didn’t need to see another second. Without ever breaking eye contact with the stones beneath him Mark started to make his way out of the crowd quickly, promptly ignoring every single sensation around him.

However he had only walked a couple of steps when suddenly a feeling so strong that he couldn’t possibly not react to it brushed against his shoulder. He swiftly turned around but found no sign of the source, instead he caught sight of someone he shouldn’t ever be able to see. 

There in the outskirts of the fare a well built dark haired man was desperately pushing his way through the crowds. He had leaves in his hair and looked like he had just run a marathon through the muddiest and most leaf covered areas possible. 

Mark stared helplessly as his own younger self pushed his way through the mass of people and from pretty much nowhere a horrible realisation dawned on him. Before he knew it he was running, the only thing on his mind the conviction that he had to stop himself.. before everything was lost again,

“Wait!”

Mark reached out in the exact same moment as his other self found what he had been looking for and for a second the thought that he had actually managed to make himself heard went through his head, only to vanish as quickly as it appeared. He had not made it in time and although Mark recalled nothing of this he got this deep disturbing feeling when the person that his old self had reached out for turned around. 

“Yeah?” The earth beneath his feet disappeared the moment that, in his mind, that slightly distorted voice reached his ears and Mark could only imagine what the real thing must have sounded like to his past self. 

The voice was too distorted for him to recognise but he thought that he could distinguish a small accent beneath the disturbance, too small to notice for most but still, it was there, growing clearer and clearer as he repeated it in his head.

When it came to the appearance of the man Mark didn’t have any idea. Fog covered most of his body and his face was scratched out completely. By his side a woman stood, hand tightly intertwined with his. She wasn’t as distorted as her partner and Mark could already tell that she was beautiful. Only the face of the woman was lost to the fog so the pale skin perfectly matched with curly black shoulder length hair was clearly visible as the woman moved uneasily. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, neatly decorated with a silver and green ornate hair pin. In her ears beautiful earrings were hung and around her throat and wrists silver jewellery sporting deep green stones glimmered. She wore a beautiful deep green dress that contrasted perfectly with her pale skin and around her shoulders a thin black scarf was wrapped. 

Mark could already tell that she was worried, maybe a little surprised too, at the sudden shout by the way she gripped her partners hand tighter and pressed a little closer, something that completely enraged Mark that could only watch in silence as the very same expression appeared on his past selfs face. 

He knew exactly where this was going but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t turn around, couldn’t look away from the life changing scene that played out before his eyes.

As mist started to roll in, gently brushing against the bared ankles of his the fog covered man froze. 

“..Mark?”

The man took one trembling step toward him, but kept the hand of the woman close. He looked shocked and unsure of what to do as he looked past-Mark over silently.

“Wha- why-.. where.. where have you been?” Past-Mark opened his mouth but was interrupted “we were worried sick about you!” The mans accent got heavier as he spoke and as the mist reached him and started to climb up his body Mark tensed. 

“Sean, I’m sorry”

An intense pain ruptured through Marks veins and he was on the verge of blacking out while the mists darkened and twisted. “Sean” he whispered the word silently to himself. Who?

“Sorry?! You disappear for a whole fookin week and that’s the only thing you have to say?” The man was angry know, his posture had gone rigid and when he moved it was clear that he was only barely keeping it together. 

Sadly the same went for past-Mark that, never the calm one, clenched his fists as a spark of anger flared up in his eyes and with a strained voice he said “I wasn’t going to come back” The other man froze, dumbfounded for a moment before he spoke again, now much quieter.

“Then why did you, Mark?”

At that moment the atmosphere came crashing down and something seemed to happen in the woman when she shifted uneasily as she carefully separated her hand from Seans. “You should go with him” her voice was soft but Mark could feel a demand hiding beneath it. Her partner seemed to sense it too as he looked over at her, probably meeting her eyes.

In the end she won and when Sean hugged her one last time it sent shivers down Marks spine. He didn’t want him to touch her like that, neither his real nor past self wanted that. 

After some time, too long, Sean finally left the woman and walked over to past-Mark slowly, he almost looked... scared, Mark thought to himself as he started to trail after the pair when they headed into the dark woods, and for all that he knew the man had every reason to.

.................

His past self was a quick walker and his companion not any worse so Mark actually had some trouble keeping up in the unfamiliar terrain. Luckily they didn’t go far and just as Mark rounded one of the larger trees in the area he saw them.

They were standing in a clearing on top of a small hill overlooking the fare. The thousand colourful lights lighted up their silhouettes and although Mark was too far away to hear what they were saying he knew the words by heart as he stalked closer.

A cool breeze wafted through the clearing, ruffling the pairs hair as past-Mark looked down at the ground. Sean had his back against one of the trees but just like his friend his gaze was fastened on the dark green grass, and at first he didn’t react when Mark spoke.

“We’re the only ones left” the words were quiet, close to a whisper, but Mark recalled vividly how they had felt to say, the heart wrenching pain that was the truth and that only deepened when the other at first wouldn’t answer.

“I..” finally Sean met his eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that.” He scratched his neck awkwardly “you know Mark, since you left I’ve been thinking a lot about..” he gestured widely “..this. And maybe..”

No.

Mark wanted to push the other man back, to shut him up, to do anything that would prevent these words. But still he did nothing when Jack flicked up his eyes to meet his own. The clear blue reflected the lights from the fare and had him pinned down completely as he realised that he couldn’t breathe. “I ask again. Why did you return?”

No.

“You could have stayed away from here. I know that you have been hurting Mark.” A pale hand was placed on his arm and as the mist started to approach once again the illusion slowly began to shatter before him. “You-“

“Stop that”

Marks insides were screaming but the words still came out stronger than he had intended. This man really didn’t have a clue. “You were the ones that saved me” He reached down and grabbed Seans hand gently as his voice dropped into a low whisper. 

“Everything that I’ve ever loved gets taken from me, brutally. I know that they’re not coming back. No one is. But..” he looked up, shyly meeting the gaze of the blue eyed man “I came back for you... so.. please..” he tried so desperately to smile but when he only met clear blue that looked at him quizzically he let Seans hand fall in favour of looking down at the dark ground. “..please don’t leave me”

Sean couldn’t possibly not feel pity for his heartbroken friend but no matter how hard he tried his head was so filled with pictures of his love that he couldn’t process the words, he had lost the ability to read his friend and it was something he would have grieved deeply had he not had Signe waiting for him. Still he understood enough to know that the man before him was in pain and for a moment he reached out, carefully letting his fingertips trace the outlines of Mark as he whispered “I won’t leave.” He smiled softly “Come back to us. You can live with me and Signe again and.. everything can go back to how it used to be.”

Signe. Suddenly a part of the mists shuddered and fell apart, revealing a lily. In that single moment everything paused and Mark was thrown back out into the dark forest, away from himself. Signe. Now the face had a name and as he watched the beautiful lily the fog hiding the appearance of the woman slowly fell away, and Mark screamed. Wave after wave of pain ruptured through his veins as he recalled the kind woman that had stolen everything from him in a matter of days. She had taken the last thing he had and cut their bond beyond repair. It was all her fault but yet, strangely enough, Mark had never come to hate her. No, instead all of his rage had been directed at someone else. So much that he had almost killed the last thing he loved in this wretched world. 

But why? 

The answer came too soon and as a strong pull grabbed hold of him Mark barely had any time to capture his thoughts before they were consumed by the fog again when he got pulled right into a world that was starting to crumble.

...............

Rage. Burning hot flames twisting and reshaping his senses was the first thing that he felt when he opened his eyes again. In front of him was Jack, pinned to the tree by his strong arms. He looked like he was in pain but the raging flames inside of him quickly incinerated the little voice that screamed to stop as he leaned in closer. This man was his.

When he opened his mouth the voice wasn’t of his gentle, happy, kind anymore but a deeper growl more akin to the tone he used in the lodge. “Don’t fuck with me. Do you think I returned for her?” Fuck, he smelled so nice. The sweet scent made him so dizzy and Mark completely discarded his thoughts to instincts when he leaned in closer, lips almost brushing against Jacks bared neck as he closed his eyes. He was perfect. 

“Stay with me” the words came from nowhere but the second Sean heard them his eyes widened and he frowned. “What are you talking about?” Mark didn’t care to stop himself when he placed one hand by Seans head and cupped his cheek. “I meant what I said. Leave that woman and come with me. Everything can be as it used to be! We can go and search for the others, we can reunite our party.. we..” 

His ramblings were cut short by a hard pain exploding in his face and when he looked back, shocked, Sean was standing there, still with his hand raised and although his face remained clouded Mark knew that he was furious. “Drop your fookin illusions Mark.”

The short sentence felt like a straight punch in the gut and Mark stayed quiet after that. Too empty to say anything. As silence fell over the pair Sean pulled a hand through his hair tiredly. “Don’t do unnecessary things Mark. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

Then he walked away and Mark could do nothing but watch, his mind too loud and his feelings too tumultuous to try and stop his friend. When Sean had disappeared back into the darkness of the forest a single feeling surfaced clearer than the others and Mark grabbed hold of it instantly. He needed something, anything, to hold him up from the gaping chasm that threatened to swallow him. But the edge he took hold of was one of hatred and as the sky darkened and raindrops started to fall on the merry fare Mark sank down against the tree and extended his palm, crushing the white lily that he held there.

He hated them. So much.

 

——————

 

The feeling of another human being stirred Mark from his sleep and it looked to be a calm awakening until a sudden pain shot through his veins as the wound made itself known once again. The person holding him had obviously not been prepared for the sudden movement and lost balance when Mark suddenly twisted.

Pain dulled his senses too much and Mark felt blind as his vision blurred and sharpened too fast in what he soon realised was the same rhythm as his heartbeats. He felt feverish and his head was throbbing so hard that he could barely form any kind of thought. 

Due to this he didn’t realise what position he was in until something whispered in his ear that he “should probably move”. That was one stupid suggestion he thought as he closed his eyes in irritation, this sleeping place was perfectly comfortable and cool. It even moved.

Moved?

Painstakingly slowly Marks brain started to catch up with his runaway thoughts and as his sight started to clear a little he caught sight of a patch of green. It was shining too brightly so he closed his eyes again but now he started to feel strange things instead. Something cold was pressing up against his neck and hands and he could feel a rapid heartbeat behind it. Small puffs of cold air kept brushing against his neck, something he really enjoyed, it felt so nice against his burning skin.

Everything seemed perfect to Mark but it didn’t stay that way for long when his senses suddenly returned to him and he realised what, or rather who, he had made his bed.

“Jack”

Beneath him a tomato red Jack laid and he looked just as shocked as Mark, only with a bit more irritation to spice it up.

“Please move.” 

Mark found himself rather unwilling to fulfil the request but due to something in the back of his mind reminding him of earlier mistakes as well as adding the way that Jack shot daggers at him changed his mind and he rolled off the blushing medic. 

That had not been a very good idea and as soon as the curtain of dizziness started to lift everything began to come back to him slowly at first but then faster and faster. It wasn’t great and Mark felt nauseous when he carefully glanced over at the other man. He was sitting up now and leaned against one of the legs of the workshops table, fogged over eyes staring into empty space. Hadn’t he left? Why was he here? Where did the rogue go? What happened to Shalandras and Sam? Mark wanted to ask so many things but yet his dizzy eyes kept getting drawn somewhere else.

“Did you change your hair colour?” 

By the titans was that an awkward question. Mark almost punched himself the moment it left his lips. Jack didn’t seem to mind much though as he only smiled softly “it was part of Felix pug cannon project”

“I’m sorry” The words slipped out before Mark had any time to stop them and for some reason they seemed to make the atmosphere more awkward than his earlier albeit more strange question as Jack stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment before he broke into a small grin. “Don’t be, I would’a totally done the same thing to you..” a mischievous spark was lit in the blue eyes as Jack leaned in and whispered “You know that Felix was super bummed out right? I’m pretty sure yer gonna see some action yourself.” He giggled. “But don’t be scared, I bet red would suit you”. 

“I’ll look like a friggin stop sign!” Somehow it felt so natural to talk to the other man and Mark found himself slipping into a kind of conversation he hadn’t had in many years when Jack laughed. It felt comfy. “I bet your sorry ass that every undead will turn around the second they see you from now on!” His accent was becoming more pronounced by the second and for just a moment Mark gave in to the contagious laughter and grinned “Well, at least I don’t look like a friggin plague tank!” But apparently that had been going too far and for no clear reason Jack paled upon hearing the words. The change was barely noticeable but to Mark it was clear as day when Jacks eyes darkened briefly before retaining their original happy glow. 

“Yeah right” He giggled but somehow it had a false ring to it, however, Mark had no time to ask anything before the other suddenly stood up and stretched. “I noticed that you have been helping the dork duo, want some help?”

“You know how to craft weapons?” Oh well, he would let it go for now. He didn’t know this man after all.

“Y-yes? Is.. is that not what medics do sometimes?” Jack fidgeted nervously with his wrist guards when Mark tilted his head quizzically. “No, I have to say that its weirder for a medic to ask what medics do actually.” 

Jack looked so confused. It was adorable. So Mark put aside his suspicions a little as he motioned to the table. “Just.. show me what you can do.”

“Right.” Jack moved over to the workspace slowly at first, uncertainty shining through every fibre of his being. Soon however he dropped the act as he started to get lost in the drawing of the sword. Mark had just started to move over to him when a loud laugh caught him mid-step. 

“Dude, this drawing is fabulous!” Dumbfounded, Mark stared over Jack shoulder at the drawing that he had considered a masterpiece, suddenly a little less impressed. “What?” A spark of irritation actually flared up inside of him when he heard the words “I think it’s not that great” So, ok, there could possibly be quite a bit of jealousy involved in that statement but probably not. Mark was a professional, such puny emotions didn’t affect him. It didn’t matter that he had never even managed to make a drawing that was close to the sword that Jack praised, it had absolutely nothing to do with his sudden grumpiness Mark convinced himself as he crossed his arms unconsciously in defence.

“Y-yeah, you might be right..” The green haired man actually looked very sad as he put down the drawing “M-maybe it lacks some finesse..? ”

“Really?” He felt relived but.. “ Do it yourself then if you’re so good at it.” 

“I-I didn’t say..” 

Despite how much didn’t want to admit it and wanted it to show even less Mark couldn’t help but put his grumpy face on as he ignored the other mans words and took the pieces he had broken earlier over to the other side of the table and sat down. Completely refusing to look the blue eyed mans way. “Don’t mind me.”

For the whole good quarter of an hour that they spent apart Mark, despite his best efforts, got haunted constantly by the terrible feeling of having done something unforgivable and it only got amplified by the fact that a pair of worried blue eyes kept glancing his way.

At last Mark couldn’t take it anymore and he slammed down his tools on the table roughly as he stood. “What do you want??” Jack flinched at the outburst but didn’t react as brutally when he carefully put away his pen neatly by the paper before standing and motioning toward the paper. “D-do you think it’s any good?” He motioned to the paper.

That had not been what Mark had asked goddammit! Yet there probably was no use in raising any more voices or else they would attract unwanted pug cannon attention so the dark haired hunter only grumbled as he went over the look at the supposedly improved drawing, leaning in possibly a little too close when he looked over Jacks shoulder. At least judging by the way Jacks blush deepened and his breath picked up a little.

This however was nothing Mark noticed when he stared at the piece before him. For a moment he glanced suspiciously at the man beside him before looking back at the paper, repeating the gesture several times until finally Jack seemed to break as he practically shouted “I know alright! Its basically the same.” Now Mark finally noticed the huge blush that had made it up Jacks neck and realised how close he actually was to the man. Retreating immediately Mark awkwardly straightened and cleared his throat. “It’s not that bad.” 

“R-really?” Why did he have to comfort this man? He didn’t even like him! “Yeah yeah” Mark grumbled as he sat down beside him “Its fine”. Jacks reaction was straight out adorable as he broke into a huge smile and tilted his head to try and meet Marks turned away eyes. “Thanks!”

Ba-dump

He would ignore that skip. It didn’t happen. He hated this fellow, he had destroyed his calm and turned everything upside down. It was horrible. 

So why did he keep having these flashbacks whenever he was close? Why did he feel so familiar and why the hell did he keep wanting to hug him? It was so strange. There was no way Mark could take this anymore and without warning he stood up. Only to quickly sit down again as a horrible feeling passed through his gut. 

He hadn’t meant to drag Jack down with him but as the adrenaline of the hunt kicked in he just happened to come with when Mark swiftly ran into a nearby wardrobe, unhitched a trapdoor and climbed down, all the while holding one sturdy hand over Jacks mouth.

When throughly hidden beneath the workshops floor Mark carefully let go off his captive but kept his hand over his mouth whilst searching for his eyes in the darkness. Upon finally meeting clear blue he put one finger across his own mouth and hushed.

To his relief Jack seemed to understand as he nodded slowly and gently removed Marks hand from his mouth. Then he rolled over to lay on his back and gazed up through the holes between the planks warily. Mark only barely noticed but the green haired mans presence was close to nonexistent. He couldn’t hear his heartbeat, not his breathing, and whenever he averted his eyes the other man disappeared completely, it was like he didn’t exist. Now Mark was well trained in hiding his presence but this was on a whole other level, it almost seemed like skills befitting a... rogue. 

Once again Marks heart skipped a beat as he opened his mouth to ask. Yet he had no time before the creaking sound of a door opening shut him up and he lay down flat again, completely still. This was probably a hopeless attempt at escaping his inevitable fate but he had managed to lure his way out of situations akin to this before, hopefully this would be one of those times.

The sound of paws hitting the floor soon broke the silence and Mark cursed silently to himself. Of course he had brought the dogs. The light sniffs continued on for a little before the shadows paused over Marks hiding place. Not long after a loud bark sounded through the room as the mops started to scratch the surface of the planks. A voice cut through the air and he knew it was no use anymore.

“Markimoo, come come.”

A light touch grazed his hand and Mark tilted his head to meet Jacks sky blue eyes, he looked quite perplexed. Not surprising since he had been literally dragged into a secret passage without warning. There was nothing else to do. Mark sighed and slowly made his way back out, hands in the air. “Yes, Felix?”

The man in question looked up at his friend and grinned, mischief lighting up his eyes. “Let’s go, I’ve got a special surprise for all slackers.” He knew it. Goddammit, this couldn’t be real. Mark kept grumbling to himself as he slowly exited the room, begrudgingly following the dusky blonde. Because he was angry Mark kept his eyes fixated on the soles of Felix shoes but this almost ended in a catastrophe when those soles suddenly stopped and Felix only narrowly escaped getting impaled by a spear when Mark walked into him. The near death situation didn’t seem to shake him much though and Felix quickly recovered and turned back into the room.

“Where’s Jack?” 

Mark froze. What should he do? Surely Felix had already done everything he could possibly do to the fella? Why did he even care? Jack was nothing but a weird stranger. 

But still.. 

“I don’t know. Have you checked the nook?” Felix put a hand up to his chin and hummed “Do you think he would have already found the way there?” He nodded. “I actually saw him sneaking around there before.”

A few moments of intense silence followed when Felix refused to break Marks gaze as he searched for any sign of a lie. After too long he finally sighed “That’s true. You’re not the type to protect strangers after all aren’t you.” 

“That’s right. That man is of no importance to me.”

And with that the pair exited the room, leaving only a sad Jack to make his way out of the hiding place and collapse in bed.


	12. Encroaching darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new mission appears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Carefully enters* H-hello, I’m late once again. But I brought a chapter this time! *holds up chapter to the sky* I’m trying to set things into motions for real now and it might get a little messy until I sort everything out.. so please bear with me ^^ I don’t know when the next one will be up but hopefully pretty soon
> 
> For now I hope you enjoy this somewhat weird chapter *bows* Every nice comment and kudos is deeply appreciated, its mainly because of all the support I’ve gotten up until now that I haven’t given up on this fic yet. Thank you!

The sun had long since set behind the treetops of Silverpine when a tired group of hunters entered their house. Everyone looked like they had just gone through 100 years of war with every one of their hair in a mess, their clothes dirtied and their eyes dulled by fatigue and cold. All except one that was. Leading the pack, at least 10 steps ahead of them, was a dusky blonde with electric eyes that gestured wildly while chattering about something irrelevant to everyone but him.

The last one to enter the safety of the house was a certain muscular hunter that stared down at the floor, intensely trying to ignore the red strands colouring his vision. He kept ignoring them all the way to the kitchen, all the while dutifully taking of his shoes, removing his jacket and keeping Bobs sarcasm at a safe distance from his pounding head. 

His plans however failed quite miserably when the second he entered the kitchen one of the strands of hair finally made it to its destination, in his eye that was. The sudden blindness surprised him more then it hurt and Mark recoiled, quickly disposing of the nuisance with a short motion. The motion did require him to tilt his head up though and that had the consequence that when he diverted his attention from the hair his gaze was immediately caught by a pair of blue eyes that looked very amused.

“Having a jolly good time I see” Jacks eyes glittered with cheer when Mark scoffed and turned around. “None of your business.” A short moment of silence ensued between them while Mark pulled out some midnight snacks from the nearby glass jars. He was all too aware of how tense the atmosphere had become and was just about to leave for some, well deserved, alone time when something grazed his hand. 

A shadow flickered across the room, too quickly for him to recognise but when he turned to look to where Jack was sat he immediately noticed something was wrong. The pale man was completely still. His eyes were turned away from Mark, toward some old plates stored in a worn down cupboard and he looked almost.. scared.. but why? Surely he couldn’t be scared of some plates. 

“Hey.” More carefully than intended Mark placed one of his hands on the slender mans shoulders. “What’s up?”

“Ah!” Jack jumped in fear at the sudden gentle touch and for a few shaking moments he looked like he didn’t know where he was. When he finally met Marks eyes it was only for a short while before he suddenly stood up. “I-I’m fine. Just, just a bit tired that’s all. Goodnight.”

“Wai-“ Marks voice was cut short by the sound of a door shutting closed and when the sounds fell silent and darkness descended on the room so did a overwhelming feeling of loneliness. It was weird, Jack didn’t use to act like that at all. Not that he would know of course, he had only known the man for a few days. Nothing you could base a persons personality on. But then why did he feel so odd? Mark slowly pulled a hand through his hair thoughtfully before turning around and walking out the kitchen. He knew nothing about the fella. But, had his eyes always been that green? 

———————————

The clattering of dishes being washed created a low ambience to the living room where four hunters were currently sat. They had pulled out the large dining table and maps were strewn out in an unruly mess over it. It had been two weeks since the pug cannon project and everyone had been enjoying some well deserved free time, throughly using the days to go fishing, pick herbs, rearrange the furniture or in the more ambitious cases build weapons or train.

The hunters weren’t used to this stalemate and despite being more relaxed than ever with the other lodges experiencing similar unplanned vacations a strong feeling that something was wrong was starting to creep into everyones minds. So when there had been a knock on the door this morning those not in a coma from laziness had rushed to open. Bob had been the first one to reach the door but the handle had been wrought out of his hand by Felix who swung open the door so quickly that the poor girl behind it had no time to do anything but get hit in the face. After she had, very rudely Felix thought, refused a cup of coffee she had told them about something big. Something so large scale that most of the lodges would be involved and that they would from now on be required to work with the other hunters. Mark had scoffed at this and almost said something rude when Wade clamped his mouth shut and smiled. It would be their pleasure. Then the girl had left, one pain free nose less, and they had gone back inside to finally start some hunting again. 

Which brings us to this merry scene. “So. I think we should go here to surprise them, take out the scouts first and..”

“Tea!” 

“No Shalandras. There’s no time for tea now. This is important stuff.” The courier paled as Shalandras put the mugs of tea down over their maps. “There’s always time for tea. Besides. I think you should go this way” Shalandras dragged on of his finger across the closest map, effectively creating a line of tea across it. “That way you won’t have to deal with that camp.”

“Yes. But then we would have to jump a pair of giant walls instead!” 

“What about this way?” Wade pushed the displaced courier to the side gently and traced a line across the maps. “Yes, that looks like a good first thing to try out. It should bring us pretty close to the front lines too.” Felix nodded slowly. “But since this map is largely outdated we will need to ask the fourth for some help.”

“No.” Mark, who had been leaning against the wall uncrossed his arms and stalked over to the others who now all had their eyes fastened on him. “We don’t need anyones help.” 

“Bullshit.” Bob stood up and leaned over the table, pinning Marks gaze. “We have some great assets here and if we are to ever succeed in protecting these lodges we need the help.” 

“That’s true.” Felix stood up. “Our duty is to kill off their strongest before they wreck our homes. So give up that pissy attitude of yours and accept that we can’t do everything by ourselves.”

“That may be true bu-“ Mark was interrupted by a weak yawn that seemed to appear from out of nowhere and actually had to look over the room several times before he actually spotted the source. In the middle of the room, hiding in clear sight was a certain medic that rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple times, apparently having a hard time focusing. When he finally spoke his voice was drowsy and darker than usual “what the fook are you guys doing? Its four in the mornin and you keep just blabbering about.” 

Ok, so. Maybe they had been up all night, trying to come up with an attack plan. And maybe they really should consider sleeping. Mark would love to ponder the possibility of this option but right now his eyes were elsewhere and so was his mind. And the problem? Jack was too damn sweet. Despite his best efforts to remain calm and collected Mark couldn’t help but feel how his heart started to pound wildly in his chest when he looked over Jacks exposed skin. He was wearing a way too big shirt and a pair of pants that was barely held up by his slender body. His hair was ruffled from sleep with cowlicks standing in all directions and his face was slightly flushed from being roused from deep sleep. The whole man was goddamn perfection and Mark wanted nothing more then to pull him into his arms and force those cute sounds out from him again. He wanted.. 

Alright. No. 

Mark abruptly stopped that train of thought right there when he pulled the emergency break and forced his eyes away. “If you don’t want to help then please, leave”. Despite not looking Mark could feel how Jack frowned as he drowsily made his way over to them. He sat down right beside Mark, a little too close for his heart and leaned down to look at the maps. It was obvious that he was only pretending to understand though and Mark had to fight the temptation to ruffle his hair or just straight up kiss him when he finally straightened and said. “Whats this all about?”

“Well” Bob was the first to speak. “Only a couple hours ago we got a message from the third division.” Jack looked completely dumbfounded so Mark was just about to step in and save the day when Felix pushed past him. “You might not know since you’re new but there’s actually more than one lodge here in Silverpine. Along the main road seven of our kind are spread out, ranging from the first on the road, the first lodge, to the last, the seventh. All lodges specialise in different areas and while the largest one is the first division, the killer one, we are the strongest. Now, the third division handles information. They scout the terrain, infiltrate and interrogate. You should keep away from them. Their methods are not always so.. clean.”

The others around the table nodded. The third division had worked in close tandem with the late sixth and was mostly made up of psychopaths and sadistic maniacs that for some reason had a knack for science. The place had their own fair share of ex stalkers and mad scientists that despite their shifty pasts were extremely loyal, especially to the sixth. So now, with the sixth close to eradicated they were most likely out for blood. Very useful if handled right but in no means a safe card.

“But. About our mission.” Bob cleared his throat loudly “as I said. A scout from the third visited us with some news. Apparently increased activity in the nearby forsaken settlements has started to lift some..concern, in the different lodge leaders. They want us to go into the frontlines and, in case our suspicions are proven to be right, eliminate any large threats together with one of the fifth, assassination, lodges strongest.”

“That’s why we have been sitting here all night” a tired voice filled in. “We don’t want to provoke any more than necessary so finding a sneaky path to enter is important. Its an in-out kind of mission.” It was obvious that Wade was tired when he almost fell of his chair while talking. He was only momentarily saved from floor duty by Bob that cast a slow fall spell on him, not halting but at least slowing his decent toward the planks.

Jack watched when Wade slowly disappeared beneath the table but didn’t wait for the inevitable thud when the spell wore off before turning to the others. “I don’t have any experience with this here area.” Lies. “But wouldn’t you say it’d be better to take the mountain route? No one will expect that and as far as I know there’s lots of ravines and old mines to hide in there.”

For someone that “didn’t have any experience” he sure knows much, Mark thought to himself as the others started to mumble. “Where are you from anyway Jack?”

“A little here and there. My parents were adventurers y’see so we moved around lots.” The pale man looked strangely sad when he said that and although Mark doubted that his parents had been just any ordinary adventurers deeming his frequent fading in and out of stealth, his reflexes and apparent grace he lacked the heart to try and pry any more out of the guy. Not in front of everyone else. 

Luckily for everyone the meeting wrapped up quickly after that when at least the great majority settled on Jacks plan. As everyone was picking up their stuff and stretching to try and remove some of their drowsiness Felix collected the maps and said “Bob will see to it that the other divisions are notified of our plans tomorrow. With the beauty that is magic this will only take a short while so I expect we will be able to move out tomorrow afternoon.”

“I-Isn’t that a tiny bit hard on everyone?” The courier finally spoke up. Only to be shut down immediately by Felix. 

“Don’t be such a whiny man. We are the strongest for a reason and it may seem strange to you but all lodges will be ready to move even earlier. The zombie apocalypse doesn’t wait bro.” And with those final words everyone moved out. In a matter of seconds the room was completely emptied out and left was only one Jack and a courier that looked at each other, perplexed. Then a sudden loud thud was heard followed by a low moan when Wade hit the ground and by the time he got up, they would already be halfway up a mountain.

————————-

“Shalandras. Stop sulking.” A small rock flew through the air with perfect accuracy and landed on the head of the druid that didn’t as much as flinch. “Felix, I don’t think that it-..” 

“Shalandras get back here!” Wades poor attempt at consulting immediately went down the drain when Felix suddenly rose up and bolted after the fleeing man that quickly vanished between the boulders and ravines of the mountain. “Geez. I just woke up from the worst night of my life and this is what I get? Mark, hunt him down.” 

“No”

“C’mon.. Bobs busy doing the prep work together with the fifth, you’re the only one that have the skills for this.” The words fell on deaf ears when Mark turned around and disappeared behind the large stone formation he had been leaning against for the last thirty minutes. 

“Damn sulky bastard” Wade aimed a kick against the closest pebble but when a sudden attack of dizziness hit him he almost lost balance and only barely parried a fall down on the ground. “Shalandras is sad that Sam couldn’t come with. Felix is angry with Shalandras because of something and Mark is angry at whatever.” Wade sighed. “I’ll just stay by you then Bob.” But Bob didn’t answer, his mind was already somewhere else.

———————

A cool breeze wafted past the black gates of The Sepulcher, sending a low wail echoing between the sinister buildings that towered there. Two guards were standing by the largest gate, their forms twisted and pale as they watched the unmoving forest with sunken in eyes. Both were holding large polearms and on their tabards the cut face of the Forsaken was boldly painted. When a deep howl broke the silence one of the guards shifted uneasily and looked over at his kin that shook her head silently. Probably nothing, just wolves.

Still looking rather shaky the guard turned back to his post, but couldn’t stand still. Something was itching in his mind and he shook his head only slightly at first but then more and more as the feeling of having someone else in there only intensified. 

His friend was starting to look at him strangely now and as she began to move over to check on him suddenly there was a scream. Immediately on alert she stopped mid-step but despite her best efforts the forest remained dark. Everything started to blur for the other guard and the woman watched with growing desperation as he grabbed his head and whimpered. 

For just a second she diverted her attention from the darkness to help her friend but that was the moment ,something, appeared. From the forest one lumbering silhouette could be made out, it brought an ambiance of voices that chattered madly and when the woman noticed and turned to it another appeared and then another. In a matter of seconds a total of five silhouettes in varying sizes and builds had appeared in the darkness and was slowly closing in on the pair.

The man was still on the ground, with pains that only seemed to grow worse the longer she waited. Cursing silently she drew her weapon and stepped in front of her comrade barking an order at him in a strange language. He looked up at her in horror then but when frost started to creep over the ground he stood up on shaky knees and wobbled away, soon breaking into an unsteady sprint.

When he had disappeared into the cemetery that was spread out behind the gate the woman let a grim smile paint her lips as she took a battle stance and spoke in broken Common. “What is a death knight doing here?”

No answer.

She clutched her free hand and put some more energy into her smile. She was at a severe disadvantage but it wouldn’t help to show how quickly her heart would have beat or how a cold sweat was breaking out on her forehead as the frost started to creep up her boots and cold descended so that even her undead skin shivered. 

One of the lumbering forms finally stepped out into the dim light of the lantern hanging by the gate and the guard gripped her polearm tighter as she gazed up at the monstrosity that stared back with too many eyes in too many wrong places. 

Then the sound of metal grinding cut through the silence as two points of ice cold blue lighted up in the darkness. A manic giggle chilled her to the bones and the woman noticed only a pelt clad armoured glove that made a clutching gesture before she saw no more.

—————————

Up in the mountains the last rays of sunlight flickered and died behind the enormous cliffside that towered behind the small camp where five silhouettes were barely visible against it.

"Do you think they´re okay?" Wade blew on his frozen fingers in a futile attempt at achieving some kind of warmth. To his dismay none paid him any attention as Felix slept with his cheek propped up on a nearby rock in a weird manner and Shalandras did the same beside him, though he wasn´t a night elf anymore but rather a slender dark fured mountain lion. He laid curled around Bob that still sat unmoving. Mark had disappeared a few hours ago and now Wade was all alone.

Marks sudden disappearance was strange to him but to be honest he was far more concerned with how Bob still hadn´t returned. The plan was not much to rely on as it was quickly put together but he was pretty sure they had said that they´d be done by sunset. Yet no matter how many times he looked down the Sepulcher rested there just as peaceful as ever.

Sighing Wade shifted and leaned closer to Bob, aiming a poke right in his forehead. It had no effect and he retracted and curled into a ball instead. "Wait for the signal Wade. Don´t move until you see the signal" Muttering to himself Wade made his way over to the others and woke Felix. He then motioned for him to go take the guard now so that he could sleep.  
As he watched his leader stretch and move over to perch on the edge of the cliffside he, much to his own surprise, smiled and let the warmth of the others lull him to sleep. Everything was going to be alright, surely.

\-----------------------------------

It was all going according to the plan. Bob let a small grin play on his lips as he moved forward in his new body. The poor guard that had tried to resist him was now completely subdued and he thanked the third division for this. Had it not been for their experiments he never would´ve known that since the Forsaken are essentially dead their minds are a bit weaker than a normal being and therefore suspectible to outside forces. His usually unharmful mind vision spell had proved very effective and Bob was now enjoying the feeling of having his very own puppet.

The fifth had kept their promise and sent exactly what he had been asking for. The death knight that was currently assaulting the main gate was of the same calibre as his own squad from the seventh and would have no issue keeping the citizens of The Sepulcher distracted. 

As Bob sprinted through the cemetery he met a couple concerned forsaken that had been woken up by the ruckus outside. He didn’t pay them much attention except motioning a warning to run, a mad death knight was attacking. 

Only about a minute after entering the gate he first entered in among the dark buildings of the small town. They were all built in classic Forsaken style. Soulless Bob would call it but stylish and homely the little voice inside him shouted in defence. He pushed it down, why did that guy care?

The town hall was easy enough to find, just look after the largest one with the most gloomy lights. The guards up front refused to let him in at first but when a couple screaming citizens ran past and shouted about an “invasion” they looked at each other, doubt surely painting their faces behind their black helmets. 

After some minutes of what looked like a staring competition the taller of them turned to Bob and asked. “What’s your business here?” Though Bob didn’t hear that but rather a mess of sounds that he couldn’t understand. This hadn’t been in their plan. With the much taller forsaken leaning over him Bob, to his displeasure, could feel his heartbeat speeding up and he smiled awkwardly. 

In right that moment the last rays of sunlight were swallowed behind the mountains and as the shadows speeded across the ground Bob shifted. He had no choice, these guards wouldn’t take him seriously if he didn’t speak, which he couldn’t. He cast a quick glance at the shadows that were closing in and frowned, he was going to be late.

———————————

In the dim light of the twilight that ensued one of the three bodies went limp and collapsed onto the ground, soon followed by a great convulsion that went through the one leaning over it. For a moment everything was still as the guard watched his friend with eyes slitted in confusion. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come and the larger guard shook his head and kicked the knocked down form. It was strange how everyone could’ve been fooled by this fraud that didn’t even speak their language. He then carried on calming the panicked people that had started to gather around him. It was no worries, only a mindless one. He must’ve gone mad from all that staring into inky blackness.

—————————

And so the night carried on. The cause for the panic at the gates remained unsolved and the second body of the guards that had been stationed there was never found. The only clue a single pair of footsteps disappearing into the forest, strangely followed by a rime frost that made even the investigators dead skin shiver. The conclusion everyone had arrived at was darkness mania. The strange sickness of the mind had become increasingly frequent the past few weeks and many had disappeared, wandering into the darkness with clouded over eyes and muttering strange words in a language no one knew.

As of lately the darkness had only become blacker and as it fell over the little village Helfast Lightbane, the mayor of sorts of The Sepulcher pulled away the curtains from his window atop the city hall and looked out, eyes scanning the darkness closely. In all truth, Helfast didn’t know what brought him to doing this little ritual every night, it was meaningless but still brought a sense of false safety with it. Like he could keep the monsters he knew to be lurking outside at bay with his eyes alone.

The forsaken had discovered the strange happenings months ago. It had all began when one of their outposts suddenly stopped responding and every courier sent there disappeared without a trace. Its name had been Last Hope and it had been the sole outpost located inside of the forests heart. He had ventured there himself once after the happenings and lost half his troops in the process. The forest heart was no longer a place to be.

A cold breeze wafted through the room, sending chills down the tall undeads spine. There wasn’t supposed to be wind in here. Had he not lost his life long ago Helfast knew his heart would be trying to break out of his chest right in that moment when suddenly all the shadows seemed to grow longer and darker, taking on a more sinister shape that bent in sync with the lone candles meagre attempt at survival. 

Desperately trying to stop his knees from shaking the forsaken mayor made his way over to the window and placed a cold hand against it. Something was moving out there. A flickering green light floated between the buildings. It looked lonely he thought for a second as something lightly touched the outskirts of his mind. He let it be as he traced the flickering light upwards. Up. Up and up. All the way to the trees towering behind the dimly lit walls. And there he froze.

A million flickering lights stared back at him. Every one of them paired up with another as they stared at what could only be the whole village but felt like only him. Unmoving and unblinking they stared at him relentlessly, shaking him down to the bones as panic started to make his chest feel like a prison. He couldn’t breathe and as he kept failing to break eye contact with the lights he finally noticed a pounding. Heavy tremors shook him to the core as something tried to break through his minds barrier. He could feel it crumbling beneath the weight and wanted to fight it. Wanted to save himself. But the eyes had him paralysed and he wanted to scream. He wanted to call for help. To warn his fellow Forsaken but no matter how much he looked none of the few citizens that were out walking seemed to notice the threat. 

In a last effort to save himself he mustered up the very last of his power and forced his eyes shut. And for a second or maybe even a minute everything was silent and blissfully black, and as the cage that had imprisoned him finally started to ease he allowed himself to take one shivering breath that despite his undead body felt so immensely relaxing. 

He was just about to take one shaky step toward his bed when everything flared up again. A sudden chorus of whispers flooded his mind as all eyes flared up again on the inside of his eyelids. They were pounding as if following a heartbeat and Helfast screamed. A bone chilling scream of terror that still relayed only half the agony he felt as his mind was torn to shreds. Clutching his head or maybe trying to rip out his very own eyes he fell down on his knees and writhed. Despite his dead heart he could feel the blood pounding through his veins and as his world slowly started to pulsate slower and slower a single whisper sounded, and with it his whole world stilled. What it said was not of his language nor any other he had heard, but as his mind swiftly descended into darkness the lone set of words was the only thing he held on to.

“He is coming.”

Yes. We’re all safe now. Helfasts body went numb as he collapsed on the floor. “Our Lord is coming.”


	13. Encroaching darkness (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya people ^^ Sorry for being so late (again) I started working again so its a bit hard to have the time to write. I’ll do my best to speed it up! I feel like I’ve got a pretty good hold of what I want to happen so hopefully that won’t be too big of a problem. 
> 
> As always, hope you like it!
> 
> Hugs, Sneaky \\(^_^)/

Jack was sitting on his bed in the sleeping area. Close to him a single candle was lit, its all too small flame unable to push back the blackness very far. In one of his hands a small bundle of paper lay, backed up by a flat faced book, and in his other he held a delicate feather pen. He was drawing something, his hand moving across the frail paper in gentle sweeping strokes as his eyes flickered over the piece. The whole house was quiet except for the howling wind that soke to enter, the quiet clattering of dishes being moved around in the kitchen and the gentle breathes of the little dog that lay pressed up against his left leg, head resting on his socked foot. 

Everything was quiet but yet Jack couldn’t relax. His dead heart drummed in his ears in an unnatural rhythm that he despised just as much as the rest of his unliving body. It was its fault. He flinched as one of the streaks went off paper. It was its fault. Hadn’t he hated it so then maybe he wouldn’t have struck a deal like that. Had his body still breathed he wouldn’t have fallen for their whispers.

The candle flickered precariously and Jack with it. Another line went off paper but this didn’t end in thin air but left a black streak on his hand instead. For a second he thought he saw the line move but then shook his head. They said they wouldn’t interfere, it isn’t time yet. 

A sudden gust of wind shook the house and the puppy stirred as a cup fell and shattered on the floor. Not time yet. Jack stood up and opened the door into the hallway, eyes elsewhere as he searched for new sheets of paper half heartedly. Had they realised he had been lying? He shook his head harshly, no impossible, yet maybe, they had been kind to him lately. The whispers scarce and the attempts at manipulation either weak or short lived. He did not know the cause for this ceasefire but it chilled him to the bones, as terrifying as it was to have someone living inside your head the sudden absence of that same entity was just as chilling. The faceless ones did not sleep, but they weren’t supposed to move either! 

Heat welled up in his eyes as Jack found a small opening leading to some steep stairs through the blur. The hunters had left hours ago on what was supposed to be a quick reconnaissance mission, a strict no combat one, together with the fifth. They weren’t expected to return until late the next evening so he did not know what worried him so, it was just that he couldn’t shake this feeling of something being terribly terribly wrong. The absence of his master, the sudden mission and the convenient to say the least offer of help from the fifth was all knit together in some strange way and Jack, though he prayed that he was wrong, had a pretty good idea on what was going on. 

“They are coming” the whole house shook again and Jack almost lost footing as the planks shifted and groaned beneath his feet. Something flashed past his minds eye but he made no effort to catch it, instead he blinked and let the dark spot flash past, just some stray signals, surely. 

When the stairs finally stopped they ended in an open space, a little too big to feel safe yet too small to be comfortable. The walls were only lit up by a few small crooked windows that shone bleak rectangles of light on the dark grey planks. The ceiling was crooked and bent and so close in some places that he had to go down on his knees and sometimes even crawl to get past. When close to the floor he could smell the scent of damp wood and as the floor bent underneath him and a drop of water hit his head he wondered how long this would last. 

It was the nook. He had heard the other hunters talk about it before. Sometimes as a place in need of renovation but more frequently as a means to bug Mark. They called him a shut in or a hermit. Said that one day the floor up there would give in and that they didn’t get why he was up there. It was all said with a tone of comedy in their voices and Mark only ever brushed them off like always but, Jack wondered, what brought him up here so often? More often now than before it had seemed from the gossip.

Something soft and warm squeezed its way past him in an especially small passage and Jack sneezed as golden fur tickled his nose. A small “waff!” made him blink to clear his vision and he felt a faint smile creep up onto his lips as his blue eyes met two dark brown.

The small dog bowed down and gave his head a soft nudge as it yelped again and started to back off, its golden fur staying visible long after the darkness had consumed everything else. Huffing Jack shook his head and started to move again. Whatever Mark was up to here he was going to find out.

————————   
Darkness had long since embraced the forests around The Sepulcher when Mark finally entered in close to the town. The forest was completely silent and still but despite that he could sense a slight wind freezing his skin and whispering in his ears. He had been watching the window of the tall tower of the Mayors house ever since it had opened maybe five minutes ago, pushed forward by a pair of pale skeleton like hands, without knowing why. He just felt that something was on the move, something related to the whispers that echoed through his mind tonight. Something sinister had draped itself over the surrounding area and Mark stayed frozen in place, completely melding with the shadows even when his heartbeat picked up, if only by a minuscule amount, when the windows started to slowly move again as someone appeared in the opening. 

He had hidden in the shadows of the trees and bushes that outlined the glen that the town was built in. It had started raining not too long ago and while he did have his heavy jacket on his hair was starting to suffer even through the black hood that protected it. A cold drop of water fell down his bangs and landed on his nose in a small splash that the man in question barely noticed. His eyes all too fixated on the black silhouette that had appeared in the opening of the window. 

Its outlines were that of a deceased man. Quite tall and probably the owner of his own set of large muscles when he had been alive. Those days were long gone now though and Mark watched silently as what he usually only saw as a corpse move forward, stepping down on the ledge beneath its window.

For a few beats it just stood there. Waving back and forth as the winds gently rocked its body. Then it spread its arms, as if embracing something, and fell. 

Mark didn’t watch the body disappear behind the high walls but he heard the screams as the first witnesses saw what had befallen their mayor. In any normal case he would’ve felt nothing with this scene but there was something eerie with the way the man had spread his hands, something eerie with the way he had fallen, even the way he had climbed out. It had looked serene, but Mark got this distinct feeling that it wasn’t because he had embraced death. No. That.. thing.. had embraced something else and, Mark could’ve sworn that he saw it cry as it fell. 

“Not intentional huh” He muttered to himself as he moved back into the shadows. He hadn’t come down here to watch this. It was a waste of time. So instead of moving back towards the town Mark set course for the deep forest. He had seen something from the top of that mountain, something terribly out of place, and he would find it. No matter what.

————————

As Mark continued deeper into the forest he soon started to notice small oddities. It started off as a few leaves on a bush glowing with something purple but quickly escalated to shadows moving in strange ways, as if time sped up for a few seconds only to suddenly slow down into a smooth pulse. When the light started pulsating and disappearing completely at times, changing from a bright blue to an eerie purple or sometimes inky blackness Mark only blinked and turned away his eyes, fastening them on the damp ground, trudging forward in an ever unchanging rhythm that didn’t change even when the forest began mutating before his very eyes. He wasn’t afraid. No longer. Never again.

As if sensing that it couldn’t break him this way the forest suddenly stopped and as everything fell away into an oily darkness it felt like he could reach out and touch the shadows. The darkness began at his feet and then started creeping outwards, devouring plants and covering trees in what could only be described as dark blood. It didn’t stop there though and soon green dots of lights appeared everywhere in the darkness. It was only three at first, and for a moment Marks heart skipped a beat, but then they pulsated, quickly transforming and twisting until there were thousands of them. Disappointing. They then all moved as one when a gooey sound escaped them and black slitted pupils turned to watch him. 

So many eyes. Mark clenched his fists as he made his way through what seemed to be a never ending crowd of unblinking stares, there were no emotions in their eyes but his brain filled in the gaps anyway. There was the judge that had sentenced him here, there, the eyes of the other prisoners as they watched in horror and spite as he brutally executed every gruesome task given to him by the test makers. They called him demon, homicidal maniac, zombie, soulless murderer. Psycho. He was the one every tainted one aspired to be and the one every law abiding person feared. He recalled how even the Prince, kind Anduin Wrynn, had looked at him with fear and disgust as he had bowed down before him, hands still covered in blood from the streets.

No one wanted him. But he wanted no one. He was a murderer, a psycho. Nothing more, nothing less. Just another puppet.

As he thought these thoughts over and over again Mark breathed out again, releasing the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He knew who he was. No one could touch him. No one could move him from his road to ruin, the very same road that had always been there. Built by him and walked by him. There was no other path. Only this.

Yes. He was sure of it.

Allowing a faint smile to paint his lips he looked up, but froze. His eyes unmoving even though his brain screamed in agony at the mere sight of the one standing before him. The black oil had taken shape. A slender figure with short hair and hands that he just knew could create miracles. It stood there, hands outstretched for him as it smiled. And even before it was completely formed he knew. It was Jack.

Why? Why was that man here again?

Mark wanted to ask what the hell was going on, why was the shadows showing him this? But the words got stuck in his throat as Jack took a step toward him, fear suddenly apparent in the steel blue eyes. Before he knew it he was trying to reach out to him but the command didn’t reach his arms that stayed by his side. The dark Jack recoiled at this, holding his hands close to his body as he looked around, so small. Mark imagined cupping those cheeks and.. he just wanted to hold him. To comfort him. To hug him so close that all the fears would just squeeze out of him.

But he couldn’t move.

So instead of reaching out and saving the man before him he watched as tentacles of darkness started enveloping him, pulling him in, suffocating, sinister. But Jack didn’t seem to notice. They slithered up his arms, hid in his hair and encircled his throat, tilting his head and caressing the pale cheek of the man that looked at Mark with increasingly empty eyes that now were laced with green.

Upon meeting the hollow eyes of the man he thought he only considered a nuisance Mark felt his knees starting to give in, every muscle in his body was trembling, his eyes so desperately trying to avoid the abyss in front of him. Jacks eyes however had nothing close to that kind of movement as they stared into nothing, now completely glazed over and had there not been small puffs of white smoke escaping his lips Mark would’ve thought him a corpse. 

“Jack?”

The stale air was too heavy. Too hot yet too cold. Everything was too much yet too little. He wanted to move forward, force his frozen legs to pass. The realisation had started to creep up on him when the dead looking figure in front of him made no attempt at attacking. This was nothing more than an illusion, a means of breaking him. Mark knew that now. He was stronger than this, it had chosen the wrong means to torment him with. Because after all, why try to touch a persons heart with something they cared nothing about? Mark etched this resolution into his mind and when he looked back up the empty forest stared back at him.

“Huh”

That had been easier than he thought. The faint hoot of an owl echoed through the darkness and as the clouds parted Mark pushed back the soaked hood and shook his head. A quiet humming of voices was still left in the outskirts of his mind but he quickly hushed them and went about forward, gently letting one hand trace the outlines of his wound as he walked. 

———————

It didn’t take long for Mark to reach his destination after that. A few turns and a jump over a small creek later the light of what he soke hit his eyes for the first time since he spotted it from the cliff. 

The light was hanging in the air in the centre of a small clearing. Its deep purple light bathing the surrounding trees and birthing shadows that seemed opaque, like you could reach out and touch them.

Despite having his thoughts in other places lately, mostly regarding his wounds and a certain green haired person, Mark hadn’t given up on finding the rogue. The activities of the fellow had been close to nonexistent at most lately and despite going on regular patrols or sitting hours on end waiting at places that would make sense for him to be he had gotten nothing. 

This frustrated Mark to no end and he often found himself putting away his how-to-kill-undead books in favour of scribbling in his homemade notebook, pages upon pages of theories as to what this thing was, what it wanted, how to find it and also.. how to kill it. It had grown into an obsession before he knew it, and it blinded him so much that he never noticed when Jack left the house for hours or how the rituals and kills always appeared right after that. 

He did notice though how the very same person could be found crying for hours afterwards, no one knew about the crying, none except Mark that sat hidden in his nook while Jack sobbed, just outside the wall. At first he always went away quickly, climbing down to deal with something less irritating. But when it had happened a couple times he found himself unusually drawn to it. Every time a new sob shook the thin mans body something quaked inside of him and while he knew that he couldn’t go out, couldn’t help him and told himself he was stupid and that this was idiotic, he still found himself sitting, back against the wall, head leaned backwards, listening to the other man sob as a great feeling of calm but also sorrow settled over him. It had quickly become a habit, and one just as addicting as his search for the green eyed rogue. He kept telling himself that there were no feelings included, it was just a way of helping him relax, but deep inside he had this little voice whispering, over and over until it became ever present “remember”.

Marks mind was quickly pulled back into reality when a branch broke not far from him. Its sound sent a squirrel jumping, landing on a branch just over Marks head and raining cascades of water down upon him. It was ice cold but despite having it trickling down his neck and soaking through his pants he didn’t move or make any sound. Something was approaching, something with a killing intent like slithering snakes. 

The first thing that disappeared was the sound, like flipping a switch, then a dark wave washed over the forest and all sight was gone. He dared not move a muscle as the killing intent crept closer and closer, it felt like tentacles were making their way up his body and he wanted to move, he had to run away. Now. Yet he stayed. And soon something separated itself from the darkness. 

The creature was gargantuan. It was darker than even the abyss surrounding him and despite lacking a face he could feel it scanning, searching for something. Probably him. It moved yet closer and as four tentacles for arms came into view Mark recognised it. It was the monster from the forests heart, from the place with all the frozen corpses. Or at least it was one of the same kind. It stopped only about a metre away from his hiding place and Mark had to force himself not to quiver. What the hell was this thing? And what was it doing here?

The answer came soon enough when suddenly the beast perked up and in a crash all sound and sensations came back to him. Something had made the creature go away, not by fear, it hadn’t looked scared, no, someone had called it.

Mark waited for a few more seconds before standing up, slapping his hands to stop them from shaking. There were persons gathered around the light now. They all wore black robes that covered them whole and had their hands raised up toward the light, as if praising it. 

For a short moment Mark let his gaze wander into the swirling glow as well but quickly retraced when meeting the eyeless gaze of the monster. It had seen him. It had to have seen him! Mark almost curled into a small whimpering ball right then and there, terror was rushing through his veins and he could feel the wound starting to pound again, a harsh reminder of his weakness.

A few moments passed without anything happening and when a strange chant started to lace its way through the trees he finally looked up again. The caped persons who he had now identified as cultists had placed their hands outstretched, palm up toward the orb that pulsated more quickly with every verse of the chant. The whole forest was starting to behave weirdly again and despite his senses screaming fir him to stay his mind had reached a breaking point. He needed to.. what did he need now again? 

Marks thoughts drowned and resurfaced one after another as whispers flooded his mind and clouded his senses. Every now and then a coherent thought arose and he grabbed on to them with all his life. Run. That’s right, he needed to run. Closer. Closer to what? Light. He needed to run to the light.

That very same evening a strangely white owl watched a man run out of the darkness, panic clear in his eyes that were dull and unfocused, his mind seeing something else. The cultists started when they saw him, a few startled but most calm. As if they already knew. The light reflected in the owls eyes and it blinked slowly, tilting its head as it stared deeper into the light. Mesmerising. 

When it looked back at the man he had almost reached the caped ones that still hadn’t moved, they, just like the orb of light, were just waiting, biding their time yet ready to bite should the need arise. And it just so happens that it did. Right outside the circle of cultists the man seemed to regain his senses, he veered away immediately and started to run the other way. Yet the monster released from the orb was merely meters behind him and when they disappeared behind the tree line the owl didn’t wait to hear the scream. It lifted its wings and took to the sky, a strange sight since half of its right wing was missing. Then rather clumsily it turned and headed southeast, the picture of a small lodge nestled under tall pines the only thing on its mind, closer closer. One down, five to go.


End file.
